Final Fantasy XIV: The Kingdom of Hearts
by tslsmokey
Summary: Once sealed for millennia, Hydaelyn has reappeared and subsequently been shattered. Scattering her light to the world to prevent a Heartless attack. Now her own scattered warriors must find the fragments amongst the memories that now inhabit the worlds. It's a good thing they won't have to relive them alone with the new threats that have appeared.(WILL BE REWRITTEN.)
1. Crystal Rain

"G'dhap! You've got some on your right!"

"Got it! Crap, behind you Corvus!"

"That was close, what the hell are these things?"

"I wanna know where they keep coming from! Iri, on your left!"

"There's too many! We may need to retreat!"

"To where? We're already as deep as we can go in here!"

"G'dhap, look out!"

"Little buggers! It's as if we're only temporary blocks for them."

"Makes you wonder what they're after… That actually is a good question."

"Corvus! Stop daydreaming and keep fighting!"

"Is that any way to speak to your- Take that you buggers! -boss?"

"Kept you focused didn't I, dear?"

"Yes. Yes you did, R'idill."

"Hey guys! It looks like they're swarming to where we fought the Adjudicator!"

"What in the seven hells are they crowding around? It looks like a… keyhole?"

"Keep smacking them! I don't wanna know what happens if they pick the lock!"

"You say that but for each one we take out, two more take their place!"

"Oh shite."

"What happened?"

"One went in. Well we're about to find out what it does."

"Ladies, Gents, Sosoloji."

"HEY!"

"If something goes wrong here, which it likely will, it was an honor serving with you... Wait a moment. What's that?"

"What in the seven hells? That looks like the ground is fracturing... Oh SHI-"

 **BGM - Magical Mystery - Kingdom Hearts 2.5**

On the grassy ground, under the starry skies, and under a tower no less, a red cloaked figure appeared in a small burst of light, lying prone on the ground. His attire was unique at least amongst the worlds of light, wearing a red hat with a feather in it, a red cloak that was attached to a red duelist's tabard, alongside red leggings. His two black gloves concealed the two rings on his hands and attached to his side was a rapier with glowing blue lines down its hilt. On his other side a strange orb was clipped on.

Within a few seconds, he stirred, getting to his feet and shaking the dizziness from his head.

"What in-. Where am I?" He muttered, looking around. He soon caught sight of his predicament. The grassy field turned out to be an island, floating in orange clouds. There were many stars in the sky, but no moon. And in front of him rose a tall tower, with a giant door, and a wizard's hat on top. He soon got the feeling things were worse and a quick glance around confirmed it.

"R'idill? G'dhap? Iri? Sosoloji?" He yelled, turning rapidly and while doing so, noticing a set of train tracks that were behind him. " _Shit… where are they?"_ He thought.

He placed his hand on the pommel of his rapier and walked towards the tower, constantly swiveling for every little sound. On occasion he'd pause and whip out the rapier, pointing in the direction of the sound, take a few seconds, then sheathe the rapier and continue on.

When he reached the door, he reached out and pushed it open, wincing at the creaking, before peeking inside. It was rather plain to say the least. A large spiral staircase leading upwards on the left and a strange glowing spot on the right. He let himself in quietly and shut the door behind him, moving to inspect the spot first as he felt a sensation most familiar from it.

" _Feels like an Aetheryte, I wonder,"_ He thought, reaching out his hand to it and focusing. A thin strand of light flowed out and in a couple seconds he felt himself attune to it. " _So… these things can act like Aetheryte? I've never seen anything like this on Eorzea or Doma. Where in the seven hells am I?"_

With that done, he quietly and slowly walked up the stairs, keeping an eye out behind him as well should anything or one try to sneak up behind him. As he climbed, he began to hear voices from ahead of him, causing him to slow his pace. But he soon learned he didn't need to worry about that, they were from behind a closed door at the top, no one had seen him. At least that's what he thought. He considered pressing his ear against the door to listen but the voices were loud enough that he didn't need to bother.

"The Heartless are acting up, Master. They haven't done this for two years," a young man's voice called out.

"Yes, Xehanort's defeat caused much of the darkness gathering to vanish. Yet I fear a new source may have appeared. I am sure you noticed, Riku. Last night, a star vanished,and in a most curious manner that did not go unnoticed by others," an older man's voice answered. He had a confidence about him, as though he had seen many years worth of things and you'd be hard pressed to surprise him.

"Yeah, it was less a blinking out and more of an explosion. People in Twilight Town are talking about the falling stars. If these rumors are right, fragments landed near or in the town. But I don't see how that's possible."

"There is only one world that could cause this, and until recently it had been sealed for millennia. You and Sora would not have known of its existence. One must delve deep into the records to even find mention of it."

The man in red got an inkling in his head, there was only one reason it would've been sealed and they may have been right in doing so.

"But then, how did it become unsealed? And why did the Heartless target it so quickly?" The young voice spoke up again

"This world was teeming with darkness. While the sentience protecting it would bless warriors with her light, there was only so much they could do. And it seems this sentience may have played one final card to avoid being devoured by the Heartless. You see, this sentience also serves as the world's heart and takes the form of a crystal. That explosion, as you put it, was her way of making certain the Heartless wouldn't succeed, she fractured herself. Sending pieces of her light, and in turn, her heart to the worlds."

The man in red caught his breath, and wiped his brow. Now he knew his goal. But how did one reach these worlds? As far as he could tell, this island was all that he could get to and he didn't think any of his mounts would be able to respond. If the old man was right, his world was gone. For now at least.

"Who did it expect-" The young voice spoke, and got cut off.

"She,"

"What?"

"The sentience is referred to as the Mothercrystal by the world's residents, thus, she."

"Fine, who did she expect to find her fragments?"

"Her Warriors of Light, and as it turns out, one just happened to drift here," The old voice spoke with a bit of an amused tone, before the door swung open. At last the man in red had a view of the two speaking voices. The younger one appeared to belong to a boy with long silver hair and light blue eyes. He didn't exactly approve of the boy's armor, which appeared to only be a white shirt, black undershirt, and some sort of leggings that he'd later learn were called jeans. The old man had a pointed blue hat with stars on it, a long blue robe, and a magnificent black beard.

While the boy was standing, the old man was sitting behind a desk. And while the boy was the one who looked like the fighter, the man in red was staring at the old man intently. After a few seconds, he bowed very respectfully.

"How long did you know I was there?" He asked, with a smirk suggesting he knew the answer.

"From the moment you arrived. I am Master Yen Sid," The old man introduced himself before gesturing to the boy, "This is Master Riku."

"My name is Josh Corvus," The man in red introduced himself, "I'd ask how you knew when I arrived, but I did yell a bit upon arriving didn't I."

Yen Sid merely inclined his head before continuing, "If you would be so kind, Master Corvus, please tell Master Riku here what it is you are."

Josh thought for a few moments before nodding and turned to Riku. "Master Yen Sid called me and my kind a Warrior of Light, but that's merely a title. All you need to be a Warrior of Light is a power called the Echo and to find a Crystal of Light."

Riku tilted his head in confusion before Josh clarified, holding out a small but bright blue crystal, "This is the crystal I speak of, as for the Echo, it's a unique power that grants a protection against unwanted influences. On Hydaelyn, the world I res-," He paused as the realization hit him, and grew somber as a result, "The world I used to reside in, we would use it to fight beings called Primals, constructs formed from crystals, aether, and a wellspring of prayer and wishing. They drained the world's life so long as they existed so it fell to Warriors of Light like myself to dispel them."

Riku's eyes drifted to the rapier at Josh's side before nodding. "Now then," Josh continued, causing Riku's eyes to snap back, "I've given you some information, now I want some answers. What in the seven hells are these Heartless you talked about? Who is this Xehanort? And what do you mean by the World's Heart?" He asked, giving finger quotes to 'Heartless', 'Xehanort' and 'World's Heart'.

And so Riku and Yen Sid began telling him about the Heartless, how they consumed worlds, and how Xehanort had incited a war out of sheer curiosity. Yen Sid conjured images to assist, but the Heartless image met a quick end as Josh slashed through it reflexively. He had been all the way across the room the second before. After that, he had suggested perhaps a book would not cause the same reaction and now sat reading through it, studying the different varieties of Heartless that had been recorded, from Sora's adventures actually, as Yen Sid and Riku conferred quietly.

"Go and gather Masters Sora and Kairi," Yen Sid said to Riku, "They will need to be made aware of the situation if they are not already. I would assume Masters Aqua, Terra, and Ventus have already noticed something awry."

"And Roxas, Xion, and Lea?" Riku asked.

"I anticipate them visiting shortly, despite no longer being tied to the darkness, they will not have missed the outpouring of light." Yen Sid said. "Hydaelyn contained a large light alongside her world's darkness, light that now inhabits the worlds."

As Riku nodded and left to find his friends, Yen Sid turned back to Josh, who still had his nose in a book and was rapidly flipping through another that he recognized as Sora's other journal on the Nobodies, with a third book containing information of the worlds he had visited. "Things will become most interesting indeed," He noted as he went to his bookshelf to find the worn records of other worlds.

End BGM

Mirage Arena

Mirage Arena

"Down for maintenance?" Ventus wondered aloud as he stared at the Mirage Arena's console. He had come here with plans to train with Terra and Aqua, plans that now seemed like they were not happening.

They had donned their armor, approached the console, and promptly found the options greyed out as a message scrolled through the screen.

"System down for maintenance, please contact local administrator for assistance."

"But who's the administrator it's talking about?" Terra asked, as a Moogle floated past them towards the teleporter, carrying a steaming styrofoam cup. It stopped short in its tracks and floated back, backwards, to them.

"Would you like to meet him, kupo?" The Moogle asked, causing the Keyblade warriors to turn to it in surprise. After a few seconds, Ventus nodded and the Moogle waved them over to the teleporter.

"Just one thing! Please be patient with him, he's been working for the past few days to fix things. So he may be a bit short-tempered," the Moogle said before activating the teleporter.

The room they found themselves in resembled an ordinary office, there was a filing cabinet next to some guest chairs, a coat hanger in the corner with a cane and top hat hanging from it, and a desk with some papers, a cup full of pens and pencils, a computer, and one very harried looking man who had a mountain of styrofoam cups behind him.

"Ah thank you Mogmon," He said, gratefully accepting the cup as he rapidly typed away at the computer. "This is a massive pain but I'm nearly done. Should be another day or so."

The Keybladers turned to eachother again, then back to the man as Aqua walked forward.

"Are you the administrator?" She asked, causing him to look up and over at her.

BGM - Title theme - Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth

"Oh, combatants! Yes, yes. I'm the administrator. Have been since I built this place." He answered, looking back at his computer as he rapidly typed "Sorry that the system's down but there was a recent event that caused a massive overflow of data that I need to fix."

"Was it the star explosion last night?" Ventus asked, the man pointed directly at him without looking away from the monitor.

"Yup, got it in one. I was working the week before it happened to add stuff in manually to prevent this very problem from happening. Let's face it, it was a foregone conclusion that that world was gonna get taken by the Heartless. Sealed off for millennia and the darkness within it made it a prime target. No chance for any Keyblade Wielder to fix it, not before it got taken anyways. So it's own defense system was sent out as well and they're now in the worlds of light. What you may not know is that the Mirage Arena works by taking your memories and constructing fights based off them. It didn't have access to the memories of these Warriors so when I saw this was about to happen, I went about constructing the fights manually myself. I could do this while the Arena was up, but the second they appeared in the worlds, the data overflow of what I hadn't added crashed the system. My wife is gonna kill me for putting myself through this again."

"So…" Ventus began, but the man cut him off.

"Short story is the Arena's down for the time being," he took a long drink from the cup and tossed the empty one behind him, only to have it immediately replaced by Mogmon. "I'll send Mogmon to fetch you when I get it up and running again, shouldn't take more than a day or two at this rate. Do me a favor and if you ever meet any of the Warriors of Light-," He looked up at them, sensing they were about to interject, "I don't mean you this time. You'll understand what I mean when you see them, send them here at least. I'm sorry to have wasted your time but I really gotta get back and finish this. Mogmon, please show them out for now."

"Aye Aye!" Mogmon gestured to the door that had appeared behind them. "Right this way, kupo!" He said, guiding them out. While they exited through a door, they still appeared on the teleporter.

"Who-, what?" Ventus got out before the Moogle appeared in front of them.

"Master Nexus is a bit busy for now but I'll come get you when he's done with the Arena! Until then, have a good day!"

"Wait a moment," Aqua spoke up. Mogmon paused and turned curiously, motioning for her to go ahead.

"How old is he? He said he was around since the Arena was built, but this has been here since our training, since Master Eraqus' and Master Yen Sid's training. Yet he looks no older than Terra," She explained, instantly putting Ventus and Terra on guard. Terra moreso than Ventus.

"Master Nexus is very old! He's existed long before the Arena did and he built it with his own hands. At least that's if he was telling the truth. To hear him tell it, he fell in love with a mermaid and the mermaid gave him immortality," Mogmon explained, tilting his head as he thought about that last line, clearly finding it as silly as Ven and Terra, who were holding in chuckles. "Regardless! We, the Moogles who work under him don't really know, nor do we care! He's a good boss and while he does have his moments, he really does care about us. We've been promised a prank day next month after he wakes up!"

"A prank day?" Terra broke in, keeping the laughter held in. Ventus wasn't having as much luck.

"Yup! We moogles love our pranks. But, he's not gonna be awake for awhile. He pulls this each time he pulls one of these long work weeks. So in response for our diligence, he gives us prank days where we see who can do the best prank! The winner gets a prize!"

"How long-" Aqua broke in, with concern in her voice, but Mogmon cut her off.

"He's been awake for a week straight. This is nothing, he's done a month straight once. If you're wondering how he didn't kill himself, that's for him to tell. Now if you'll excuse me, I have one other task to do. Can you point me towards Twilight Town?" Mogmon asked, holding a small clipboard and a workers kit in his paws.

 **AN: Well. Here it is, my first fic on this site and to be honest, bit nervous about how it turned out. Regardless, I hope you enjoy and I'll be working on this whenever the busy, busy, holiday season and college work lets me. I'm always open to feedback so fire away!  
**


	2. Below

When it was Hollow Bastion, the world seemed very gloomy, even after Maleficent had been driven out. Now that it was Radiant Garden, even the most pessimistic individual would be hard pressed to say that improvements hadn't been made. Indeed, the world was regaining its former glory, bit by bit.

Which was why the warrior in front of the portal was so unnerving. The portal had appeared about ten minutes prior when a small crystal smashed into the ground and shattered. In a few seconds, the portal had appeared where it landed. Five minutes later, the warrior had appeared, cursing about some dark creatures and wondering where he was, calling out names such as Corvus, Iri, R'idill, and Sosoloji. Now he stood for the past few minutes, wondering what lay beyond the portal.

He wore what looked like heavy, but bright white, armor. A small crown lay on his head and on his back was a heavy shield and sword. What was the strangest about this man wasn't that his garb was out of place for this time, but more the fact that he had cat ears on the top of his head, and a fluffy, brown, cat tail swishing out of his backside.

After a few seconds, he nodded to himself and stepped into the portal, completely missing the two people that had been about to call out to him.

* * *

 _Thanalan: Copperbell Mines_

As his eyes adjusted from the bright sun to the darkness, he soon made out a dark mineshaft and frowned.

"Of all the… How did that lead here?" He wondered aloud, turning to view where he came from. As he stared at the closed doors that he had apparently walked out of, a light sound drew his attention. A moment later, two forms tumbled out of the door, landing heavily on the ground as the door slammed shut and clicked behind them..

The first was a boy, probably around 18 years of age. His clothing seemed pretty light, not suited for fighting in the warrior's opinion, he had very spiky brown hair, and clasped in his right hand was a large… key? The second girl seemed to be close in age to the boy. Once again, the clothing didn't seem right for fighting. And clasped in her own right hand was a similar key, though her key looked to be a bit more flowery than the boy's.

He crossed his arms as the two started groaning and pushing themselves to their feet.

"Now who might you two be?" He asked, getting their attention.

"I'm Sora!" the boy said, pointing his thumb at himself, then gesturing to his friend, "And this is Kairi."

The warrior nodded, "You may call me G'dhap Tia. Now what possessed you to follow me into an incredibly dangerous area?"

"How were we supposed to know where it went?" Sora protested.

"True," G'dhap nodded, "But do you always jump into things instantly?"

"He does," Kairi confirmed, a bit of a sheepish grin on her face making G'dhap think it might not have been just Sora's idea.

"Where is this anyways?" Sora asked, looking around the entry.

G'dhap merely started walking towards the next room, unslinging his sword and shield and clasping them together. A small aura covered him as he focused his attention on the strange rock-like creatures and a black bunny in the next room. Their backs looked like crystals were growing out of them but their sharp teeth showed that going for the crystals was a bad idea. The bunny held a crystal in its little paws but its beady eyes were filled with feral malice. "Welcome to the Copperbell Mines," G'dhap grunted before yelling and charging in there.

Sora and Kairi barely made it to the entrance of the room before G'dhap had finished the creatures off in there. The gruesome scene left them nauseated. The crystals from the rock creatures lay shattered on the ground, and they had to turn away from the walls which now contained a very splattered rabbit. Meanwhile, G'dhap was picking up a small key from the ground and staring at a locked door.

"So, I need to make my way through here again to escape…" He muttered, pushing past Sora and Kairi to check the entrance door. "Locked. Figures."

He walked back to the first door and unlocked it, turning to Sora and Kairi. "Well kids? You coming?"

His voice shocked them out of their stupor and he saw them stare rapidly at the carnage then back at him. With a heavy sigh he brought his gauntleted hand to his face, speaking through it. "Look, if you want to get out of here, you'd best follow me. You'll have to deal with that for now."

He lowered his hand and walked through the door, muttering about kids not knowing how to deal with killing despite having weapons, and occasionally rubbing where he slapped his hand to his face. Sora and Kairi quickly caught up with him, as he stopped in a lift with his hand on the lever.

"Now I want to clarify something with you kids. If you want to survive here, you need to fight," he said, pulling the lever down and sending the lift down as well. As the lift door opened, he guided them out and through an opening to see their targets gathering a little outside the door.

"These creatures can and will attack you without provocation. Those," he pointed his blade at the crystal-rock creatures, "are Coblyns. They bite hard, and have a nasty tendency to blast energy out of their crystals. They're usually either territorial or have a fight response to anyone getting close. And those," he pointed his blade at a black bunny entering a tunnel, "are Spriggans. They will use those crystals as a focuser, channeling spells at you. They also have a wide range of movement and won't hesitate to send themselves hurtling at you. They are also quite protective of the crystals they carry, and by that I mean they attack on sight."

He turned back to them, making sure they understood. "Do you get it? Killing here… It's not a choice. If you don't kill them, they damn well will kill you. Understand?" He watched as they nodded, then turned back to the foes.

"Good. Oh and… It's not normally that messy," He scratched his head sheepishly, "I didn't expect to be back here and the enemies aren't exactly strong for me at least. I didn't expect my first moves to effectively annihilate them."

He took a deep breath and threw his shield forward, catching it on the rebound getting the enemies attention as he ran forward and the shield bounced off their heads. With another small burst of magic, he sent out a flash of light, making certain they focused on him. Sora and Kairi took that as their cue and jumped in, slashing at the enemies until they were no more.

G'dhap nodded approvingly as the enemies fell to the onslaught, not the least bit as gory as his first fight there was. With a beckon, he led them through the first segment of the mines, making one small detour to grab a chest. As they approached a small bridge to get over a chasm, Sora and Kairi jumped as the wall burst open and a large beast lumbered through. Its brown torso was heavily muscled, its eyes were covered in a horned helmet, its left arm had a large buckler and in its right hand was an axe that it had used to break the wall down.

"Hecatoncheir! Just dodge the axe and you'll be fine… But if you get hit it's going to hurt, those muscles aren't for show," G'dhap ordered, hurling his shield at the beast's head to get its attention and turn it away so the other two could hack at it uninterrupted. When it fell, they continued on, crossing the two bridges that connected a small rock outcrop in the middle to the other side, and slaying the monsters on the way. The only other time they stopped was to let G'dhap grab a small baggy that was on a lift on the other side of the chasm and to also point out a new enemy they encountered halfway through, the strange, purple, floating enemies he called Lightning Sprites.

Soon they reached what appeared to be a dead end. Sora looked at G'dhap to ask a question only to see… He wasn't there. Instead he had begun climbing a pile of rubble to get at a strange black powder that he scooped into the bag he'd picked up earlier. With a mischievous glint in his eyes, he walked over to another rubble pile and poured the powder into a small hole, before moving back to a plunger and pushing down on it.

With a loud explosion, the pile of rubble vanished, leaving a lone Spriggan in the room ahead.

"Be warned," G'dhap said, "That one may fall quickly but this room has them hiding all over. If we make enough noise, the big guy carrying the key to get out will drop in. However, another kind of enemy will also appear. It looks like a round, orange ball, but it has a shite-eating face and needs to be taken out quickly before it literally explodes. Are you both ready?"

Receiving nods from the both of them, he hurled his shield at the Spriggan and charged in. He was right, the first one went down within seconds. But they were soon attacked by many more… that fell just as quickly. Eventually, G'dhap hurled his shield over their heads to smack into a round, orange, monster that had an evil grin on its face. "That's one of them! Get it!"

He said to get it, but the two could only watch as his own attacks tore the monster in two, with a ferocity born of fear. The scene repeated itself twice more as two more fell from the roof amongst the onslaught of Spriggans. Eventually as the last of the bunnies fell, they heard a stomping from the tracks above them as a Hecatoncheir dropped down to fight, and got beaned in the head by G'dhap's shield. The fight didn't take too long as Sora continued slicing through the beast, with Kairi not just assisting, but casting an occasional cure to G'dhap who had been taking the brunt of the Hecatoncheir's blows.

As the beast fell, Sora and Kairi fell back, panting. G'dhap looked none the worse for wear but he still motioned for them to sit and catch their breath, something they did without complaint. While they were doing that, he picked up a small key that had fallen nearby the locked door on the other side of the room during the commotion caused by the battle. He also opened a chest that had fallen as well and appraised the contents of it, grinning.

"Sora, " His voice called out, getting their attention. Kairi blinked as a pair of gauntlets flew out and nailed Sora on the head.

"What was that for?!" He yelled at the man, only to see his ears twitch in amusement.

"Your reflexes could use some work… Put those on, those are pieces of enchanted gear that should provide a nice little boost. Perhaps bolster your flagging strength. I'm not certain how you've survived this far with that clothing you call armor but the opponents will be getting more challenging. You best be prepared."

Sora glared but attached the gauntlets to his arms as Kairi giggled a little. It wasn't long before he felt that the man was right, the enchantments on there gave a small boost to most of Sora's attributes. Strength, vitality, defense, all got a small surge.

"Now, the one thing you need to be aware of is this. The second you start fighting wearing those, they become bonded to you. From that point on, no one else can wear that piece. Now if you keep using it and the spiritbond becomes full, I, or one of my teammates, can show you another way it can become useful."

"But what about you? Don't you need stuff like this as well?" Kairi asked.

G'dhap shook his head, and motioned to his own armor. "This stuff is actually pretty good. While that pickaxe stung a little towards the end, This armor is actually much better than what this place contains. If you wind up with me again later on, we might be able to find more potent pieces…" He paused and then unlocked the door. "Take another five minutes to catch your breath and meet me at the lift up ahead. I'll clear us a path."

With that he unsheathed his sword again and walked off. As he walked down the hallway, he came across two flying, yellow orbs that he recognized as Errant Souls. At his current strength level, they were not a threat and he proved it quickly. By simply pressing his sword and shield together and focusing, he let loose a magic shot called Holy Spirit. Two shots later and both had fallen and faded from view. He continued following the path, and took a quick detour left to open a chest and grab another couple potions from it, before arriving at the lift and settling down to wait.

A few minutes later, Sora and Kairi got to the lift to see him simply leaning against the back of it.

"Come on, kids," He said, "We've still got two segments left to cover and I'd rather not stay here any longer than necessary."

They nodded and entered the lift.G'dhap reached over and yanked a lever causing them to descend slowly.

"When we arrive down there, there will be two paths. One to the left and one to the right. We need to clear both sides before we can proceed," G'dhap calmly stated.

"How many times have you done this?" Sora asked, a curious expression on his face as he held his hands behind his head.

"Many times. My team was renowned through our home as a group that was capable of taking on any threat. Defeating any foe. But at our core, we really all are just adventurers. We want to explore, to find all the secrets the land has to offer. We started as four people, but we grew so much bigger. I hope everyone's alright. Knowing Josh, he's likely already searching for us… Probably looking for R'idill first. But all things considered, once I get my bearings I'll likely do the same for Iri-" He caught sight of their confused looks, "Er… I'll explain a bit more once we're out of here," He said as the lift door opened and a Spriggan scurried across their view… Only to take another shield to the head. G'dhap really liked that move.

The action also served to bring in an Errant Soul that had been lingering down towards a wall, allowing G'dhap to give a brief explanation, "If you see that drawing in energy, back off. As quick as you can. If it hits you, it not only damages you, but also drains your stamina and makes it more difficult for you to swing your weapon."

The bunny and soul fell, and G'dhap led them down the left side, where they saw an Errant Soul alongside the Grenade and Spriggan. As they dove in, the enemies fell before their blades. G'dhap noted, approvingly, that Sora and Kairi were getting used to slaying the creatures.

"What is that stuff?" Sora asked.

"Gunpowder," G'dhap answered, slipping the bag into his pockets, causing Sora to stare at him, "What? All adventurers get an inventory enchantment that lets them store a massive amount of stuff without any weight problems. Gods help the poor sod who tries to carry a normal adventurer's load without the enchantment."

He guided them back up the ramp to the other side where they proceeded to slay the monsters on that end as well, and got another bag of the gunpowder. Before Sora and Kairi could even ask what the gunpowder was going to be used for, G'dhap headed back up the ramp and walked towards a dead end. It was then that they noticed the lever near, what seemed to be, a wall, and realized that G'dhap was going to blow up yet another wall.

With an ear-splitting explosion, G'dhap strode through the new hole in the wall, leaving Sora and Kairi to get the ringing out of their ears. It didn't take long before they saw him grabbing another gunpowder bag off the ground in the new passage and pausing before another room.

On its left was a lift system, meant for pulling ores out to be sent up to the surface. To the right stood another blasting lever and a pile of rubble. In the center, was a big, green slime.

"Ah this thing. The Ichorous Ire. I'll keep its attention, there will be a blasting lever really close by it. Not the one by the wall, though. A Bomb will appear out of the ground. Do not attack this one. As much as I hate those things, it's only the force of their explosions that make this slime actually beatable. If any Spriggans appear, kill them fast. They tend to go for the variety of Bomb that spawns here. When I give the signal, rush the slimes that will be there. Once they've divided a few times, they lose the consistency that causes attacks to bounce off them. Got all that?" G'dhap finished off his explanation, looking over at the two.

"Let's get to it!" He yelled as he threw his shield forward once more, catching it on the rebound and keeping that Ire's focus. "Sora, get over here and push the blasting lever, then get clear!"

In a couple seconds, he saw the Blasting Cap appear and he gave a small burst of light to draw its attention to him. He waited a few seconds, then dove out of the way as a large explosion rocked the ground and forced the Ichorous Ire to divide in two. He sent out another flash and pulled them towards him as he nodded to Sora to hit the lever again.

As the new Blasting Cap spawned, a Spriggan also made its way up to the top of the pulley. "Get rid of that Spriggan!" G'dhap shouted out. He heard two clangs and a small yelp, then saw the bunny go flying off the edge. He smiled briefly, then dove again as the second Cap detonated, splitting the Ichorous Ire once more.

"One more oughta do it!" He said, drawing the Ichorous Ires all to him with another Flash. Sora hit the lever one more time, another bunny went flying off the platform, and the Ichorous Ire was divided once more by another explosion.

"That's it, now give em hell!" He shouted as the two Keybladers dove in and made quick work of the eight Ichorous Ires. He had been right, again. During that fight, whenever he smacked it with his blade, you couldn't see any sort of injury on the monster. It was as if his attacks were bouncing off. Now it was in visible pain as the copies started dying quickly. When the last one died off, Sora and Kairi took the chance to catch their breath again, as G'dhap walked over to the pile of rubble in the bag and picked up another small bag.

He also took the time to open the two chests that had dropped and withdrew two items from them. "Kairi, got something for you here," He called out, tossing a pair of goggles to her. "Same deal, should give you a boost," He said, pocketing the other item that he'd taken out.

As Kairi caught and put on the goggles, Sora spoke up, asking a question that'd been on his mind.

"G'dhap, you know this place right? Could you tell us about it?" Sora asked.

"I can… but it's not the nicest of tales," G'dhap said, "but if you're certain, then far be it from me to hold back the truth. These mines used to be abandoned. Their veins emptied of ore for years. Then an Ul'dahn mining company by the name of 'Amajina and Son' came and reclaimed the shafts. They had hoped to expand downwards in an attempt to find new veins of ore. But their powder kegs uncovered only terror. In the midst of the smoke and rubble, they came upon a horrifying discovery. You see, one of the previous dynasties of Ul'dah, specifically one called the Thorne Dynasty, had used Hecatoncheires as thralls. Slaves if you will. They'd buried them deep below the ground in a lightless prison. And those explosives freed them from their prison. They came surging out with murder in their eyes and revenge on the brain, completely unaware that the dynasty in question had been gone for over 300 years. We didn't like it, but we had to slay the attacking giants. They were completely in the right… but their rage was very temporally misplaced."

He waited as this sunk in and turned to pour the gunpowder into the small tube near the wall. One last explosion would put them on the path to the exit.

"But… how?"

G'dhap stopped, and turned around at Sora's question, noting that Kairi seemed to hold the same one. "I presume you're asking how someone could be that cruel," he said, getting a nod in confirmation. "I don't… presume to know. It disgusts me just as much. But there wasn't anything me, or my team, could do. Let's just get through the last leg and wrap this up."

With that, he pushed the lever down… and frowned as no explosion occurred. Then he remembered, slapped his gauntleted hand into his face, paused to whimper slightly, then poured the gunpowder into the tube and pushed the lever again. Once everyone's ears stopped ringing, he guided them through the last leg.

On this last bit, they encountered enemies that he called Living Fossils and Pit Hippocerfs as they went through an area absolutely covered in crystals, and traversed a small underground spring to get to the last open area. As they approached the huge open ground, G'dhap held out a hand to stop. As they came to a halt, they soon found why.

[BGM - Nemesis - Final Fantasy XIV]

The ground shook as a loud smash echoed through the chamber… Then another, and then another. Until finally, with a loud crack, a large hammerhead burst through the far wall.

"Slaves no more! Free! Freeeeeeeee!" A loud rumbling voice roared through the cavern as a large Hecatoncheir forced his way through the opening, carrying that large hammer with one hand. As it made its way towards the group, it continued roaring out, "Masters must pay! Masters must die! Never again! NEVER!"

"This is it!" G'dhap yelled, charging forward, directing the giants attention to him and away from the group.

"Right!" Sora shouted, joining him in the fray.

"Got it!" Kairi jumped in as well, slashing away and keeping a steady stream of cures to G'dhap.

Under the steady stream of attacks, it wasn't long before the giant moved to the eastern wall, followed by G'dhap, Sora, and Kairi. As they got close to it again, they saw it bashing away at a wall, finally letting it crumble to reveal another giant moving to the western wall to proceed to do the same.

"Sora! Kairi! Make certain it's down before it breaks down that wall! It'll let more of them through and we do not want that! I can handle myself here!" G'dhap yelled out, ducking the swing of the huge hammer. With a quick nod, the two Keybladers ran to take care of the additional giant as G'dhap started laying into the big one.

The pattern wound up repeating itself as they wore the biggest giant down. They would take out the smaller one it summoned, return to keep beating it, then go take down another one it called. While it took them a bit of time, they managed to defeat him before the western wall could fall, and with a pained cry, the giant fell forward, dead as it hit the ground.

[End BGM]

"That… is that," G'dhap breathed out, with his hands on his knees to finally catch his breath.

"Is there any more?" Kairi asked, staying alert as she stared at the hole.

"No, they stopped coming when their boss went down. At the time we thought they just fled. We figured out we were wrong about three months later. But if this is based on our first time through, we shouldn't need to be worried." G'dhap said, straightening up and sheathing his sword and shield, "And if you'll look over yonder, you'll see we have another chest and the exit."

He pointed towards the far wall where a chest had indeed fallen, and a portal had appeared in the hole that the giant had smashed through. But as he got closer, he realized there was something on the ground next to the chest.

"What have we here?" He muttered, reaching down and picking up the small crystal. It took a couple seconds but it soon glowed with a bright light and flew into his armor. For a second he could've sworn he heard something, nearly too faint to make out, but it was there.

 _Hear… Feel... Think..._

"What… was that?" He muttered, turning to Sora and Kairi who were looking through the chest, "Anything good in there?"

"There's a pair of boots in here and this strange worn out roll," Sora said as G'dhap made his way over to take a look.

"Ah, those boots… hmmm.. Kairi, those would work best with you, I think. As for that roll, might I borrow that just a second?"

Sora handed the roll over to him. In a second, they saw his attire change to what looked to be a white tuxedo, with a purple tie. His leggings swapped to actual pants and his boots followed. Instead of the crown, he now had a monocle as well. And his sword was replaced with a strange device. He pulled out a blank roll, that was in much better shape, and a phial of ink. They watched as he started poring over the faded roll and inscribing on the blank one. When he finished, the faded roll crumbled, the inkpot vanished, and the blank one took on the shape of the faded roll but in much better condition.

"There we go," G'dhap said, his attire switching back to his armor, "Once we get out of here, I should be able to construct something that you can play this through."

"But what-" Sora began, and was rudely cut off by G'dhap.

"It's what we call an Orchestrion Roll. Originally, in Hydaelyn, you could find faded rolls or the real things all around the place. My friend and boss, Josh, is a very avid collector of them and I learned how to restore the rolls and make Orchestrions from him."

"Hey!" The two of them turned to see Kairi at the exit smiling at the both of them, "Come on! Let's get out of here!"

"Coming!" Sora shouted back and started running over.

"Kids," G'dhap muttered, grinning, and walked over as well. As he got closer, the two of them walked through the portal.

"But that voice…" He muttered, once he was certain no one was there, "That sounded like… It couldn't be… What happened to Hydaelyn?"

Shaking his head he followed the two of them through the portal. When they arrived back in Radiant Garden., he gazed around the area, getting tabs on what he could make out. A strange shop nearby the portal, and a house that reeked of magic, likely a wizard's house, behind him.

As he exited out of it, the portal closed directly behind him, causing him to ponder for a bit. But a new voice broke him out of his musings fairly quickly.

"Sora, I really should stop being surprised at how quickly you get involved in these things."

G'dhap turned… and saw a silver haired boy, once again in way too light of armor, grinning over at Sora and Kairi.

"This day… This day just keeps getting stranger," G'dhap muttered.

* * *

"Finished at last! Mogkin, go ahead and tell the rest of the moogles to start planning their pranks. I'm taking a month off to spend time with my wife and then you guys get your prank -yaaaaaaawn- day."

"Aye aye boss! Where you headed?"

"Atlantica. She went there while I did this and I am not missing this for the worlds."

"Do you have your-"

"Yes, yes, I have the enchantment all ready to go. I'll see you then. Oh. and how's the little project I assigned you guys going?"

"Apart from one of them vanishing in Radiant Garden, the rest of them are all set. Shouldn't have any civvies going into them now."

"Perfect. You take care now!"

 **AN: And here we are! The second chapter! Apologies for it taking so long but school and retail are a pain in the ass. Not only that but I had a bit of difficulty figuring out how to get this chapter to work and even then I might go back and edit it later if I can find a way to make it work any better. Please feel free to leave any reviews you have down below.**

 **Now onto business. Yes, this will be switching between the Free company viewpoints. As of now, only Josh and G'dhap will be used but the others will soon be brought in. Secondly, I don't claim to be an expert on how to write the Kingdom Hearts characters. If I slipped up, please… please let me know. I cannot improve without feedback and I'm caught in a bit of a hard place as there's no one I know to actually proofread these things. As for how fast Riku managed to find them... Don't be so quick to judge on the time, remember, some worlds really have no indication of time and even of those that did, it's quite possible that if it looks the same time, it might not be. In-game, for FFXIV at least, time can flow pretty quickly. You enter a dungeon in morning, only to exit when it's the dead of night.  
**

 **I'll be trying to go back and not only redo each instance I plan on using, but also replaying Kingdom Hearts, each game that I can get my hands on, to get a better handle on the characters. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next chapter!**


	3. Primal Judgment

Josh wandered through Twilight Town, taking in the sights. Yen Sid had recommended it after he had become a bit impatient merely waiting. He had to admit, it was a good idea. The peaceful town was nice and quiet, at least when compared to the seafaring nation of Limsa Lominsa and merchant hub that was Ul'dah. It also had a far more friendly vibe. He supposed it was because they could afford to be that way. No nations were constantly at their throat and they didn't have beastmen or their gods trying to kill them.

 _Just as well,_ He thought, examining the clothing of the townspeople as he walked down to what Yen Sid had called the Tram Commons, _That stuff wouldn't stop a sharpened stick let alone a sword_. _Well If they can afford to not worry, then that's their right_. He had switched garments himself, though only in appearance. To the naked eye, he appeared to now have a white shirt with a purple tie on it and leather leggings instead of his completely red garb. This was but an illusion, his own armor was still on him. He was of the opinion, a proven one at that, that one should be ready for combat at a moments notice. Given how often he had been ready to relax for a few minutes only to get a call that sent him scrambling, his idea wasn't so far-fetched.

As he made his way to the Tram Commons, his eye was drawn by a poster next to the help-wanted board on the hill he had been moving down. The poster detailed some kind of tournament called a 'Struggle', leading him to wonder what it was. It mentioned it would be at the Sandlot, but if the date Yen Sid gave him was correct, it wouldn't be held until later in the week.. Well at the very least it would be a good idea to continue checking out the area, and it was only a small detour on the road to his right to see what it looked like.

He was met with the sound of loud whacks and yelps of pain as he got closer, as well as a voice trying to cheer on the fighters. As he rounded the corner to see the wide open area, he saw a boy with a black bandana and white coat swinging at another tanned boy who was wearing a sleeveless orange shirt. He smirked as he saw that the tanned boy was sporting a number of bruises on his shoulders, likely from where the boy with the bandana had hit him with… a blue stick? Yeah a blue stick with a yellow hilt. A bulletin board was nearby with more of them lying on the ground. Practice perhaps?

He directed his gaze towards the third person, a girl with light purple hair and a blue top. He'd heard the voice but finally noted that it seemed to be one or two word sentences. He shrugged and settled in to watch the little spar. After a bit he finally spoke up, drawing the three's attention.

"Not bad, though you could use a little work," He said, walking toward the group. He noted the tanned boy and the girl were staring curiously at him and the bandana boy was sneering.

"Oh yeah? Just how would you know?" the bandana boy said, crossing his arms.

"Why not see for yourself?" Josh offered, walking to the other side of the darker square that the two had been sparring on and drew his rapier. He paused a moment and quickly sheathed it, picking up one of the blue sticks by the board. He took a few practice swings and pokes, then nodded and walked back, beckoning the bandana boy to fight.

After a moment of deliberation, the boy nodded and walked to the center, pointing his own stick at Josh. At an unspoken signal, he darted forward and swung overhead at Josh, only to see his attack miss by a little bit as Josh leaned to the side and took the chance to poke him in the ribs. A side slash was met with a quick parry and another hit on his side. Josh noted the boy was starting to get mad as he continued parrying and dodging the slashes. With a smirk, he decided to end it and went on the offensive. A quick cross slash to knock bandana boy off guard, a slash that left a Z image in the air for a second to follow up, and finally a rapid series of stabs that sent him tumbling away.

"Your swings were wide. Not only that, but they were often telegraphed so badly that a blind man could see them coming and they either left you open or they were easily parried and that left you open instead," Josh said, walking over to offer him a hand up.

"Just who are you?" The boy yelled, stumbling to his feet and ignoring the hand. Yup, mad. Josh entertained the idea that perhaps he could've gone a bit easier? Nah, then he wouldn't learn.

"Just a simple adventurer who's been fighting foes far more powerful than himself for about three years now," he responded, "But, I would like to say that you do have potential. Those things I mentioned? I can assist you with them, should you be willing." The bandana boy stared at him for a bit, trying to see whether this strange man was mocking him or if he was being serious. Making his decision, he gave a cautious nod.

And it was this scene of training that three Keyblade Wielders stumbled upon on their way to visit Master Yen Sid, taking a detour to investigate the sounds of conflict they heard as they were approaching the area. Knowing the world, it was probably a Struggle match, but what they found they would not have expected.

"Getting better, young Seifer. Keep that posture up. Remember, you want to not only be able to strike at a moment's notice, but be able to respond to attacks as well."

"I'm trying! It's not as easy as you make it look! Hey- ow!"

"It's not supposed to be easy. But it will help you when you master it. I foresee a great improvement if you continue on this path."

"What's going on here?" A man's voice cut through the training sounds. Josh motioned for a quick time-out and looked over in the direction of the voice, spotting three newcomers. A woman with blue hair and a pair of wristlets adorning her arms, a young man with blond hair, black and white shirt, and armor on his left shoulder, and another man with brown hair, a black shirt that very clearly had armor built in, and armor on his shoulder as well.

"Training," Josh replied, "I am assisting this young man in learning some new techniques."

"What kind?" The younger man asked. Josh gave him an appraising look and then gave a friendly smile.

"An art that's not been seen here before. While magic is usually involved, I am teaching him the rapier-work of the Red Mage," Josh said, unsheathing his rapier as a sort of demonstration. "He's learning at a rapid pace too."

Seifer scratched his head, a little embarrassed, but at the same time he had a boastful grin on his face.

"Hmmm. Yes, I think that should do it actually," Josh said, giving Seifer a quick look over, "Practice up and I'll come by and see how you're doing soon."

He turned to start heading to the commons only to bring up the rapier to ward off a quick strike from Seifer, "Nice try," He said, and walked off, completely missing Seifer's jaw dropping, and half of the blue stick- which he'd learned was called a Struggle Bat- falling to the ground.

As he made his way to the southern walls, going off of a tip the Master had given him, he noted that despite all the time he had spent, the sun had not dipped any lower. "Guess it's true," he muttered, "Time is not the same here as it is back home. I hope everyone's alright. G'dhap's probably already causing trouble. Iri, well she's usually polite. Just hope no one's managed to piss her off. R'idill… I know she's probably okay but I can't help but worry. And Sosoloji… I pity the poor fool who takes him at his size- ow!"

In his musings, he had completely forgotten to watch where he was going, and walked straight into a… tree? He turned around to see where he had wound up and noted he was somehow in a forest. Behind him was the southern wall of Twilight Town with a hole in it that lead to this forest.

"Well, at least I found what I was searching for, Master Yen was right. Now if I remember right, he said there was an old mansion further through here, a bit to the west out of the forest," he muttered to himself, continuing his little stroll, and attempting to adjust his course as needed. It soon became apparent he didn't need to bother as the forest itself was not too big and he found himself at the mansion within a few minutes.

It looked as though it had been in disrepair for years, yet he could see marks that showed repairs had been attempted on it recently. The gate was locked but he probably could break it open, though he would prefer not to. Off to the right of the gate, he saw something that didn't quite fit with the appearance of everything else on this world. It was a bright blue podium with a small screen on the top of it, directly behind it was a small blue dot on the ground. The podium itself had lines of light running up and down it, like circuits and definitely similar to what Josh had known as Allagan technology back on Hydaelyn.

As he went to examine the screen, he heard a twig snap on the path behind him, causing him to whirl around and spot the three who had come across his training session.

"Didn't expect you to follow me," He said, turning back to the podium and looking at the screen. On it, he noticed there were four squares, all blank for the moment. Right above the squares was an image of what looked to be a ring of flames under a solar eclipse. He frowned at this, getting some memories back from the first true trial he had. He tapped the screen, seeing if anything would happen, and to his surprise, one of the squares lit up with his Job Stone on it.

"Well that is interesting," he muttered.

"What are you doing?" A female voice called out to him. As he turned around, he noticed the blue-haired woman walking up, with the two men following her closely.

"Investigating this. It appears out of place," He said, gesturing to the podium. He stepped a bit to the side as she started looking at it closely as well. Within a minute, she gasped in shock as she touched the screen as well, only to see a key appear in the second square.

"Aqua?" The younger man asked, "What is it?"

"I wonder," Josh muttered, "Would you two kindly tap the screen as well? It appears that something may happen when all four squares are lit."

"And what would that something be?" The older man asked, frowning when all that got was a shrug from Josh.

"If I knew, I would have told you," He said. After a few moments, the younger man stepped forward and tapped the screen as well, causing the third square to light up with a key as well. And soon after, the older one stepped forward and tapped it.

As the fourth square lit up, a voice called out from the terminal, "Entries confirmed. Gate open!" And the blue dot behind the podium shot a small beam of light up.

"Well this looks interesting, did the Allagans get to this world in the past as well? Or is this something new-"

Whatever musings Josh may have had, they were quickly stopped as the light expanded to a large vortex that engulfed all of them. After a few seconds and an incessant ticking sound, it vanished, leaving only the podium with a checkmark on it.

 _Thanalan: The Bowl of Embers_

Josh staggered as he blinked away spots in his eyes. And then instantly frowned. He remembered this place and if he was right, they were in for a fight. Charred ground spread out in front of them and above their heads, a solar eclipse darkened the sky. For some reason a circle of blue light was around them and as he tried to push forward, it blocked his path.

"Hey," He called over to the three Keyblade Masters, "Are you all alright?"

"I think so," The woman, Aqua if he'd heard one of them correctly, said, "Ven? Terra?"

"I'm here," The blond boy said, "What about-"

"Here as well, wherever here is," The brown-haired man chimed in.

"The Bowl of Embers," Josh said, watching his memories play out in front of them. The Keyblade Masters followed his gaze to see a scaled bipedal appealing to something called Ifrit, to the protests of a couple men and panic of several others that were being held in bindings by the scaled bipedals. After a dismissal from the scaled ones and a few more seconds, a large sphere of fire appeared in front of the solar eclipse, within which a large lizard was ensconced. It burst forth, flipping into the sky and landed in front of the bipedal. After a few more words it turned to breath blue flames on the captured men.

The change left the Keybladers gasping and Josh inclining his head, remembering the first time he'd seen this. The captured people, all of them, went from panic and protests to praising the thing that had landed in front of them. Yet there was four who remained unaffected by the burst of flame, one in metal armor, one in leather, and two in robes. One of these four, despite having a book instead of the rapier they currently saw and being in vastly different robes, was Josh. While the bipedals were outraged, the lizard's response was audible to all.

"Forsooth, thy frail mortal frame can serve as vessel to the blessing of but One," its voice rasped out, "Yet I smell not the taint of another upon thee… The truth of thine allegiance waxeth clear- thou art of the godless blessed's number. The Paragons warned of thine abhorrent kind. Thine existence is not to be suffered." And with a slam of one of its claws, a circle of flame appeared around the four adventurers, the lizard, Josh and the Keybladers.

The memory adventurers began fading and Josh quickly turned to them. "Listen carefully, that is Ifrit and the second the circle drops we have to fight it. Its claws are nasty and it can breath flames. It can also summon pillars of fire and cause eruptions of rock underneath you. If you see any red cracks or other circles of flames, get clear of them fast. Lastly, if he summons a spire of red rock, break it fast. He uses that to draw in aether for an attempt to wipe us out. Got it?"

The sudden explanation left them baffled but a quick nod confirmed they understood what he was saying. In unison, Terra and Ventus smacked the armor pieces they had on and Aqua tapped her bracelets, summoning their own full sets of armor and earning an approving nod from Josh.

"Keep behind him if possible, I'll draw his fire," Josh said turning back to Ifrit

 _BGM - Primal Judgment - Final Fantasy XIV_

When the circle dropped, Josh drew his rapier and a thin tether pulled him straight to Ifrit, causing the primal to roar, "My flames shall consume thy flesh and soul both!"

He flipped right over the primal's head and landed behind it, causing it to turn around. At the same time, Terra and Ventus charged straight for the enemy and started slashing at it, dodging out of the way of any fire bursts. Aqua was keeping back and firing spells at it and occasionally darting in for when her spells needed a recharge.

Surprisingly enough, Josh was firing his own spells as well. He started off with a burst of red magic that he chained either into lightning or wind, and depending on what he used he would occasionally chain that into fire or stone. After enough chains, he would perform a cross-slash, a z-slash and then a flurry of stabs that he rounded off by either casting a series of explosions or a trio of light orbs on the opponent.

Occasionally, Ifrit would fire a ring of flames, knocking them all back. It stung but it wasn't enough to deter them from the fight and whenever this happened, Josh would break from his chain to fire of a series of healing spells, before returning to his chain.

As they hacked away at it, Ifrit roared, "Succumb to the inferno!" and a series of red cracks began appearing under Aqua. She quickly started moving to dodge out of the way and just barely missed being hit by the explosion that followed, though she certainly felt the heat from it.

A minute later, Ifrit roared "Surrender thyself to the fires of judgment!"

With that, the spire of red rock that Josh had warned about appeared. "Now! Break it!" Josh yelled, keeping the focus of Ifrit as he ducked yet another flame breath. Terra and Ventus nodded and went to town on it, noticing that the red spells Josh had fired before were hitting it too.

After a few seconds of the constant punishment, the nail broke and Ifrit leapt into the air, shouting, "Thy souls shall burn for eternity!"

"This is gonna sting, less than if the nail hadn't been broken but still gonna sting nonetheless," Josh muttered as Ifrit touched down in the center of the ring. In a quick move, four orbs of flame appeared in the corners of the arena and burst as Ifrit channeled the element of fire to scorch everything, yet as the flames died down, they were still standing. Very much hurt, but still standing, as Josh moved to turn him away again, he started firing off his healing spells once more.

As Ifrit also resumed the fight, he stated, almost impressed, "Thou art strong, mortals!"

As the eruptions continued during the fight, soon four circles of flame appeared under the center of the arena, causing Terra and Ventus to dodge out of the way. Once again it was not a moment too soon as the circles gave way to giant pillars of flame. As they moved back to the center, Josh and Aqua followed them as the circles appeared on the outer edge of the arena. It continued like this until at last, the primal was finished.

As it fell to its knees, Ifrit managed to gasp out, "The blessing of Light… defies me?!" With one final roar it vanished in a burst of purple smoke and a pillar of light appeared at the far end of the arena. As Josh made to enter it, he saw one last thing, a small crystal on the ground nearby it. As he picked it up, the three Masters saw him fall to one knee, clutching his head with one hand. As they rushed over to him, he managed to stand back up, wincing as he held the crystal.

"What the heck?" He muttered, pocketing the crystal and shaking his head.

"That was impressive fighting," Josh said, turning to the Keyblade Masters, "For your first time fighting a primal, you didn't show any fear."

"We've fought worse," Ventus stated, with a cheeky smirk on his face.

"If Master Yen Sid is right, then that may be correct. Ah, I nearly forgot! Allow me to introduce myself," Josh gave a cordial bow, "My name is Josh Corvus, Grandmaster of Magic, Warrior of Light, and one of the four founders of the guild, Arcana."

The three Masters looked at each other from the casual display of titles, none of which they recognized.

"I'm Ventus," the blond boy said, "And this is Terra, and Aqua." He continued, gesturing to each of them in turn.

"Well then, no point in us staying here any longer. Come, this light pillar should take us from this twelve-forsaken pit," Josh said, entering the pillar and vanishing.

As the Masters followed through, they saw him glaring daggers at a figure in the glade. As the figure stepped forth, they were able to get a better look at him. He was covered with armor from head to toe. His helmet had two long horns appearing from each side, and provided a slit for his glaring yellow eyes to peer from. His hands, surprisingly, didn't have much armor on them. Though apparently he was not entirely human as his hands were clawed. In his right hand, he clutched a large broadsword in a reverse-grip that had a line right down the center of it, and curved a bit at the tip of the sword.

After a bit of examination on the newcomers part, he finally spoke in a deep voice, "So this is the whelp that would claim the mantle of Warrior of Light? Pathetic. Not even close to the previous holder. Not even worth the rust on my blade."

"Who is he?" Aqua asked.

"No clue, never seen him before," Josh answered, his hand gripping his rapier.

"No matter, my lord has decreed that your light must be extinguished, as so to bring about his return!"

As the four of them took up fighting stances, the knight raised his sword, "I, Garland, will knock you down!"

 **AN: Well... this took far longer than it should have. My apologies, I get so freaking distracted and the new content of Stormblood as well as Dissidia NT did not help. But the little ending scene caused me to also have to change things up and rewrite a bit. It inevitably shook up how this story was going to play out to begin with. My initial premise was a bit too out there but with this new one, I think I got things a bit better tied down. Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long and I'll be able to continue on at a much faster pace... I make no promises though. This was also shorter than I would have liked admittedly but hopefully my next one will be longer.  
**

 **At this time I'd also like to give a small notice, I will not be writing out the earlier dungeons again. Unfortunately they are incredibly boring and draining to even go through normally, much less writing them again. Dungeons from level 50 and onward will be written in the story but those earlier will be relegated to off-screen roles.**


	4. Cracks in the Walls

A.N. So here we are at last! The fourth chapter. Unfortunately my writing schedule still is hectic requiring a mixture of free time, me not being at work, and me actually having the will to write(backlog of games being a pain.) Getting into the modding scene for A Hat In Time didn't help either. So, at the end of each chapter from now on, there will be a small little A.N. that tells you about a job or other element of Final Fantasy XIV. Just a way to help those who don't know much about it! I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Oh and to the two who left reviews. Thank you, seriously thank you. They may not have been long but they let me know that you at least enjoyed or cared enough to leave something.

Twilight Town: The Mansion

BGM - Black Powder - Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

Terra was the first to charge, with Ventus close behind. Garland answered with a swipe of his sword faster than one could have guessed, sending Terra skyward. He dodged Ven's strike by leaping after Terra and the reason behind the crack down the center of his blade became apparent as one half of the blade folded to the top of the sword, forming a makeshift axe which was then used to smash Terra to the ground. As he moved to attack Ventus, who had jumped and was nearing him, a ball of light hit him out of the air.

Josh was holding a book in front of him, which was slightly smoking. As Garland came to rest on the ground and got back up, Josh had pulled a quill out and was rapidly scribing something in the book. Within a few seconds, he thrust a hand out to point at a spot close to him. As he pointed, a vortex of wind appeared, revealing a green, winged spirit which quickly began firing blades of wind at Garland.

As Garland began charging, he took a heavy blow to his side and three quick blows to his back, courtesy of Terra and Ventus. Aqua was also joining in the fray, she had sent a healing spell to Terra and began firing off elemental spells to stagger him. As a result he now had sparks running through his armor, and his cape was smoking.

Josh pointed at Garland, creating a small series of sigils around his finger. As if the sigils were empowering, the spirit swept its wings close together, then flung them out, generating a cyclone around Garland, flinging him back into the air. As he went flying, Josh swiped his hand across his book, before aiming it at Garland again, this time with no discernible effect beyond a small blue cloud. Another point, a cloud of green bubbles, and no visible effect. That is, until, he snapped his fingers and a bolt of energy left Garland roaring in pain. Another flung hand, and a ball of energy exploded above Garland, spiking him to the ground.

Before he could send out the energy bolt again, Garland stood up, coughing a bit, and thrust his sword forward, sending it flying towards Josh on a chain and knocking him through the exterior wall of the courtyard, and even through the exterior wall of the mansion itself. As the sword retracted, he grabbed it and split it in two, using it to batter Terra and Ventus before jumping into the air and sending a volley of fireballs from both blades to knock them away.

"I've had enough of this!" Garland roared, as his cape lost the cinders and began glowing silver. His blade took on the shape of the axe once more as he landed and smashed it into Aqua, generating an earthquake. As Aqua stood stunned, he raised the blade above his head. Before anyone could react, it began glowing red and he began relentlessly slashing at her. Even splitting it into the two blades for some of the slashes before he combined it once more and with two last swipes, sent her flying into the forest with a sickening crack.

"Now to deal with that annoying poisoning pest," He said, turning towards the mansion as his cloak turned purple once more. As he began walking towards the mansion, his sword tip dragging along the ground, he got a small sense of impending danger and turned to the left.

His eyes widened, as a series of pillars of light swept towards him and launched him back.

"I should have known you would arrive as well," He said, "But I have not the time to deal with you. It appears the whelp gets to live for now." He grunted, turned, and walked off into the forest, vanishing soon after, with a series of heavy footfalls chasing after him.

?

His eyes shot open, looking around the room. In front of him sat a man dressed in a very nice tuxedo, accompanied by the traditional top hat. His gloved hands were resting on a cane in front of him and the man's brown eyes were fixed right on him. As the room came into focus, it seemed to be a log cabin but he soon realized it was more like the lobby to a business.

As he looked around it, the man's voice caused him to look back at him.

"Ah good, you're awake. Now I'm sure you have questions but I need to ask a couple of you. First, do you remember your name?"

He nodded.

"Ah good good! Now then, do you remember what happened to you?"

He thought for a bit, and then shook his head.

"Ah," The man leaned back into the very nice couch he was sitting on, with an uncomfortable look on his face, "Well… I suppose this should be expected. I… Well, I suppose there really isn't any way to beat about the bush. You died."

Twilight Town: The Mansion

Josh shot awake, feeling the cinders of a Phoenix Down work through his system. He was still in pain, the feather only brought you back to consciousness, but it was the first step so any healer could actually do their job. Speaking of which, he soon felt the holy magic of Clemency work its way into his system as well. His mind started working, only one member of Arcana spent the majority of his time as a Paladin and there wasn't enough time to have taught someone the art to that point.

His eyes forced themselves open and he saw the familiar brown ears and then the face of his friend.

"You are a sight for sore eyes G'dhap," he croaked out.

The face smiled, "Oh thank the twelve you're alright. I mean we've tanked tough blows but being knocked through two walls and embedded in a staircase is a tough one to beat."

His mind continued clearing as his own healing kicked in and he frowned. "Wait, what?" He tried to get up but found his arms and legs were stuck. He tried looking around and found he literally could not move his head.

G'dhap chuckled a bit, "Here, this might sting a bit."

With a wrench, and a loud yelp, Josh found himself being yanked out of the staircase. G'dhap focused again, putting his sword and shield together and releasing a burst of Clemency once more, healing the new wounds on him.

"Thanks, that helps a… lot…" Josh's face paled as he remembered his recent companions. "Shit, Aqua, Terra and Ventus. They were attacked as well. We gotta get to them-"

"Calm down," G'dhap placed a hand on his shoulder, "They've already been treated. We found them right outside the mansion. Yes, they were in a lot of pain but, apparently Keyblade magic is pretty potent. They're explaining the situation to Sora, Kairi and Riku."

"Wait, so he actually found… On that note where-"

"A place called Radiant Garden. Actually they found me when I investigated a portal, only to find it dropped me back into the Copperbell Mines."

"First or second time?"

"First or- oh right the times we went in there. First time."

"Interesting, I didn't find a portal but I found a podium. As I was examining it, that's when Aqua, Terra, and Ventus found me. When I tapped it, it put the job I was currently using in one of four boxes. As Aqua followed suit, we found that it placed a key icon there. I got Terra and Ventus to do so as well, and then we were all dropped into a fight against Ifrit, that first time we fought them actually."

"Did it try-"

"No, we didn't see the blue tempering flames at all, thank the twelve for that. It didn't give us much trouble thankfully but I doubt it's going to remain that easy."

"No, it never does, does it? Come on, I think those three are a bit worried now."

With that, G'dhap stepped out of the hole that Josh had made. He turned to motion him through only to see him opening the door right next to it.

"There was a door," Josh said, smirking when G'dhap flipped him off.

"You're alright!" He heard from the gate, turning to see Terra, Ventus, and Aqua breathing a sigh of relief. He also caught sight of a brown haired, goofy looking boy and a red haired girl right next to him. Riku wasn't in sight but he was likely behind the wall.

"Sorry about that. I never expected that from him. What hit me though? He should have been out of attacking range." Josh asked, walking forward through the gate with G'dhap and spotting Riku just to the left of the gate.

"It was his sword," Terra explained, "Alongside that transforming trick, he shot it forward on a chain."

Josh winced, feeling his chest and staring at the hole in the wall.

"He also used magic, he took me and Terra out with some fireballs," Ventus chimed in.

"And he gained a boost right before doing that, I saw his cape turn silver and he gained a definite glow. But, after he hit Terra and Ven with the fireballs, he turned to me and I don't exactly remember what he did, other than it hurt a lot," Aqua ended the litany.

Josh thought for a moment, then reached into his pocket. After a little bit of rummaging, he pulled out a large book, making everyone but G'dhap stare in shock. He started writing in it quickly and after a minute or so, he slammed it shut.

"Recording what you know?" G'dhap asked.

"Yeah. When we find Iri, R'idill, and Sosoloji, they'll need to be brought up to speed. But my main question is why didn't he actually finish us? He said that we, or more specifically, I, had to die by the orders of his lord. And he had a perfect opportunity to do so, so why didn't he?" Josh pondered.

"Good question. It needs to wait though. Yen Sid's been waiting for us." G'dhap chimed in. Everyone turned to him, some with a look of curiosity, some sheepish looks, and one glare. Josh did not like his ponderings interrupted. He shrugged at the glare and started walking off, with Sora, Riku and Kairi following, and the rest soon after.

As Josh left the area though, he paused for a couple seconds with one last question running through his mind. Just what in the seven hells was that dream though?

Twilight Town: The Mysterious Tower

"I see. So this Garland ambushed you upon leaving the…" Yen Sid paused and turned to Josh

"Bowl of Embers, sir," Josh replied, getting a surprised look from G'dhap.

"Thank you, the Bowl of Embers. And yet, despite showing overwhelming prowess, he left before making good on his threat."

"Master, didn't you say that you'd picked up a source of light there as well? A second one apart from his crystal?" Sora asked.

"Oh yeah!" G'dhap said, "Though you also mentioned a source of darkness. Probably was Garland."

"Indeed. So it can be assumed that this light drove off Garland. Yet, it currently remains unknown as to who it is."

Josh listened to this, thinking carefully. After a bit he spoke up. "On the subject of these portals, the fact that both of them linked to areas from mine and G'dhap's past can't be coincidence. I'd wager that any podium or portal we come across will lead to one of these areas. If we discover one, we should enter and clear it. Trust me when I say, we do not want normal people entering them."

"Right," G'dhap nodded, "Josh and I, and the rest of Arcana, are extremely skilled fighters. This is not us bragging. This is stating a fact. We've had to fight many powerful foes just to survive. Yet, we had trouble on the majority of these places. I don't want to think of what would happen if someone unprepared entered them."

"You don't need to worry about that, kupo!" A new voice rang out. Both Josh and G'dhap paused, and paled, at that verbal tic, before slowly turning around to see a moogle holding a tools kit in his left paw. While everyone else, sans Yen Sid, was shocked, the Arcana members had a slightly different response.

"Moogles are here too?"

"Seven hells, the dawn of a thousand tasks is upon us."

"What?" the moogle tilted his head, "I have no idea what you mean. I came here to explain the podiums! And bring a small gift from my master!"

The moogle handed both Josh and G'dhap a handful of vials and floated to the desk.

"Do you mind if I explain from here, sir?" He asked Yen Sid. Getting a nod for confirmation he turned back around. "Those podiums were set up to prevent any, as you put it, unprepared people from entering. Only those with a Job Stone or a Keyblade can enter. While any with those requirements can allow people in, this was meant to prevent ordinary folk from just stumbling in and getting themselves killed."

The group took a moment to think on this and nodded.

"My master also said that the most dangerous ones were also not located in any of the worlds, rather they formed into their own floating world. He said that he recommended you take the Arcana members when travelling from world to world as they likely could recognize them! Oh! I nearly forgot! Drink one of those vials, both of you. The others are for your teammates when you find them"

Josh stared at his before looking back at the moogle, "The last time I drank anything a moogle gave me, I was bedridden for a week."

The moogle visibly winced, "Yes my brethren love their pranks don't they? No need to worry! We work out our pranking urges at work with pranking days that our boss sets up! We actually get another one when he returns from his vacation. From what he said, that should reduce the cast time for most spells to nothing. Anything that goes beyond the normal cast time will still have a bit, but far less than it used to be."

"Your master… Would he be Nexus?" Aqua asked, causing the moogle to turn and nod. As he did this Josh and G'dhap shrugged and drank one of the vials, coughing and spluttering.

"Correct!" The moogle jumped further in the air, "Oh, that's right! He said the Mirage Arena was fully functional now. He regrets he won't be there, but even an immortal has physical limits to his body. At least that's what he claims but I think he just wanted a break."

"Wouldn't be a potion without it tasting horrible," Josh muttered, staring at the vial and getting nods of agreement from his companion, having completely missed the comment about the Mirage Arena

"Sorry," the moogle said, "We never did figure out how to improve the taste. Anyways, those potions also do one last thing. I don't think you noticed but you weren't able to summon any of your mounts! When travelling between worlds, you can now call them for flight, allowing you to go as you please! I recommend you stick with the Keyblade Wielders for a bit, just to get the hang of it. With that, I must head off. I gotta get to my next task."

With that, the moogle flew off the desk and out the door.

"Did you notice he lost the verbal tic there?" Josh asked.

"Yeah, I caught that. I guess they can be professional. Whoever this Nexus is really did a good job training them. I didn't want to kill that one at all."

"Unlike the Mogho-"

"We do not speak of that."

"What?" Sora asked, his head tilted.

"Never mind. Is there a map of the worlds we could look at?" Josh asked, taking a blue sphere out of his ear and tapping it to another one G'dhap was holding. They both quickly replaced it in their ears as Yen Sid waved his hand and a map actually appeared.

"Huh, convenient," G'dhap muttered, wincing as Josh whacked him on the head with his grimoire.

"Right… So this is us, here in Twilight Town right?" Josh asked, tapping a place on the map.

"Yes," Kairi chimed in.

"Alright. So. We have a few options of where to go given what worlds are adjacent. G'dhap, you were found in… Ah here it is, Radiant Garden. That's where you dealt with the Copperbell Mines with Sora and Kairi. By the way, good work in there you two. Thrust into an unknown area yet already able to take down the foes within? Not bad. Anyways. I say we head there first, looks like it connects to a lot of other worlds and we may be able to find other podiums there. Hopefully, we can also find any other members of Arcana as well."

"At least we'll know fairly quickly if one of us is there," G'dhap said, getting a nod from Josh and even more confused looks. He explained, "Whenever we enter a new place, it's rare that we manage to stay out of events for long. Usually we make quite a splash whenever we arrive somewhere."

"Right," Josh said. "From there we should probably split up. I think the trip to Radiant Garden should be enough to show us what to expect from travel to other worlds."

"Are you sure you'll be good from there?" Riku asked.

"We may not look it, but we're fast learners. We had to be. From there, we should split off. G'dhap and I will head to… Ah here it is, The Land of Dragons. We'll circle around to Olympus Coliseum and return to Radiant Garden after checking out Beast's Castle. If we find anything, we'll contact you with these."

G'dhap held out a few blue spheres that looked exactly the same as the ones he and Josh had tapped earlier.

"They may not look like much," he said, "but these are our most useful tools. We call them Linkpearls. They're already tuned to a linkshell that lets you keep in touch. Simply place it in your ear. If you need to contact any of us, tap the ear it's in twice. It'll send out a chime to us, letting us know you're talking, then just speak and it'll flow through just fine. Distance hasn't been an issue before so hopefully it should work."

As the rest of them took a pearl and put it in one of their ears, G'dhap also handed one to Yen Sid.

"Before you go, there is one last thing I wish to discuss," the old master's voice broke in, causing everyone to turn to him, "G'dhap. Josh. I understand you both possess a rudimentary teleportation spell."

"Yes, sir," Josh replied, "It requires a fixed point to focus on, usually an Aetheryte crystal. However I haven't seen any here. There was one thing that seemed to mimic it, but considering the price of failing a teleport, I am not eager to try."

"Indeed, the Memory Circle," Yen Sid nodded, "I will be looking into making them a suitable focus for you. There should be at least one on each world. Find it, attune to it, and with luck I shall have a solution for you soon."

"You are far too kind," Josh gave a polite bow and then turned to the rest of the group, "Well then, if there's no more questions. I'm a bit eager to set off. Shall we?"

?

"Gah! These idiots are driving me up a tree!"

"Sorry but that's what happens here! New fighter shows up and starts beating everyone left and right? Everyone's gonna wanna test their mettle! Even Herc dealt with that."

"Did he get any breaks between them?"

"No, but that's because Hades wasn't letting him."

"Hades?"

"God of the dead, not someone you wanna meet. Capiche? Anyways, I'll make sure you get some breaks soon. Try to hang in there, kid."

"Thanks. Oh, could you keep an eye out for someone? If I know him, he'll find his way here sooner or later."

?

"Gawrsh, so the Heartless appeared in your world as well?"

"Heartless? You mean those shadow monsters that we saw?"

"Yep! Me, Donald and Sora fought them a few years ago!"

"Who are they?"

"Well Sora is one of my best friends! He went to Radiant Garden with his girlfriend for a while but he pops back here all the time! And Donald is a wizard here! He and I are close confidants of the King!"

"I see…"

"Ah! I nearly forgot! My name's Goofy! I'm the captain of the knights here!"

"A pleasure to meet you then. My name is Iri Shirogane. I'm an Astrologian, belonging to the free company Arcana."

?

The air rippled as a man stepped through onto the pavement of a road. As he took the opportunity to look around, he noticed that as he breathed, bubbles appeared above him. The ground to be made of sand, rather than the normal dirt. As he looked further, he paused. Staring at something in the distance.

"Well, I was trying to help them find their teammates in other worlds but… I'm not picking up anything here."

He folded his arms, raising an eyebrow, "More to the point, who the hell lives in a pineapple under the sea?"

A.N. Fun little messing around, giving you hints on where two of the other Arcana members are. That last bit could be considered just a random bit. Some of them may lead to other stories in the future, others are just me messing around. Now then onto the first FFXIV Corner! Today's topic, the Summoner.

It's one of the more complex jobs in the game in my opinion. It has multiple sources of damage. Damage over time spells, summons, direct damage, and area-of-effect spells. And you have to keep track of it all.

The main path for it dealing damage is summoning either the Ifrit or Garuda-egi(Garuda was what appeared today) and sending it out while you lay down your Bio and Miasma spells and use Aetherflow. Both deal damage over time while Aetherflow restores some magic and prepares you for the next set of abilities.. Normally, you also set down a Shadow Flare, which deals damage over time in a set area. While you wait for the next step, firing off Ruin spells, which take the form of white pearls or a small missile storm, helps keep up the damage. Most also fire off Enkindle, which makes the summon use its most powerful ability. It usually takes six minutes to recharge, but everytime Further Ruin II activates, it turns Ruin II(the pearl) into Ruin IV(another missile storm), and shaves ten seconds off that cool-down.

From here we have Aetherflow abilities, use three of these and you can go into the Dreadwyrm Trance, which neutralizes Ruin 3's cast time and sets another spell called Tri-Bind to be far more useful. It also resets Tri-Disaster's cooldown, which applies both Bio and Miasma as well as a debuff that gives much more damage to Ruin spells while it lasts. Lastly, the trance lets you use a powerful AOE called Deathflare. It ends the trance instantly, which gives you a dreadwyrm aether, and deals massive damage.

Use Aetherflow again and you can repeat the process again, and after that you can summon Demi-Bahamut for 25-30 seconds, can't remember off the top of my head. Every action you take causes him to lash out with a powerful Wyrmwave. Every 15 seconds you can make him use Ahk Morn, a very powerful AOE attack.

Lastly, I'll finish off with the Aetherflow abilities. Three are useful, one not so much in later content.

Energy Drain- Damages your foe and replenishes your health and mana by a little bit.

Bane - Spreads your DOTs from one foe to other nearby ones, though the potency is decreased a bit per foe.

Fester - Deals damage proportional to the number of DOTs on the targeted foe. Can be the most painful of the Aetherflow abilities.

Painflare - Deals AOE damage to a foe and all foes nearby it.

This… wasn't supposed to be so long but if you read through it all, I hope you found it informative, see you on the next chapter whenever that appears!


	5. Steel Reason

A.N. Welcome to chapter 5! Just wanted to respond quickly to a review that had been left.

Wingedcatgirl - Yes, Arcana will need to get used to underwater combat… Just maybe not in the way you might expect.

Also as a note to Kairi's style. Considering that we haven't really seen much of it in the games, how could we in all honesty, I believe she'd be more of the mage but capable of dealing some painful hits with the keyblade. In essence, a Red Mage. This is merely my thought and if anyone has other ideas, I'm happy to hear them.

With that said, on with the chapter!

Radiant Garden

"That… was an experience," Josh muttered as they touched down in the center square of Radiant Garden. Being the last to land, he took the time to quickly shake out the stiffness of his legs and look around the castle town as he combed down the feathers of a majestic, glowing, teal eagle, one that he had used as his transport.

"No kidding. I experienced it once before but that was in a… What did you call it, Sora?" G'dhap asked, doing the same for his own glowing, white eagle.

"A Gummi Ship!" The young man replied.

"Thank you," G'dhap said, "But if that's what it's normally like. I think this journey is going to be a bit more fun."

"You say that now, but…" Josh trailed off, thinking to something they saw during the flight.

As they had taken off from Twilight Town, they had entered what Aqua had referred to as the Lanes Between, the pathways between worlds. It was a strange, purplish, void that was dotted with stars, or worlds as they soon realized. However, as they flew from Twilight Town to Radiant Garden, Josh had caught sight of something and slowed them down so he could confirm.

What he had spotted looked suspiciously like a mechanical fortress floating in the empty space, and after giving it some thought, urged them forward as quickly as possible. G'dhap took one look and agreed with the judgment, both of them exhibiting a level of anxiety not yet seen from them.

"What did you see anyways?" Terra said.

"Back home, one of the greater threats we had to deal with was a goblin menace known as the Illuminati. They were obsessed with hoarding knowledge, hoarding it to themselves and killing anybody who got a hold of it. They normally were viewed as non-threatening but… Then they got a hold of the Codex, a fragment said to hold a massive amount of information. As it turns out, it did. Enough for them to summon a primal of their own. Alexander, the mechanical fortress, and the primal of time. They wished to use it to rewrite history in their own image. Thankfully, we took it out but it was not an easy fight at all," Josh explained, giving a quick pat to his bird, which took off and vanished in a burst of sparkles. G'dhap's bird soon followed.

"And let me guess. You saw Alexander as we came here," Riku chimed in.

"Bingo."

"I dread when we have to deal with it again," G'dhap moaned. After a bit his ears twitched and he looked down a path, "Hold the phone… Hey Sora! Isn't that the way the portal was last time?"

Sora and Kairi looked down the path and nodded back.

"Yeah, it was right in front of Merlin's house actually, " Sora said.

"Right, come on," G'dhap said, heading in that direction.

"You got something?" Josh asked, falling into step.

"I just want to check something. If I'm right, we can predict where we can find certain podiums. If I'm wrong, all we gain is just a bit of time in finding them."

As they arrived where the portal had been, G'dhap smirked triumphantly.

"You guessed right?" Josh asked, walking towards it.

"Let's just see what it is first before calling that," G'dhap said, as the rest of the Keyblade Warriors trailed closer. On the podium, an image of a darkened mineshaft was visible. From what they could see in there, they also saw the wooden walkways underneath unlit torches.

"Yeah, that's our second run of Copperbell. That was… rather annoying," Josh commented.

"Y'know. Still wasn't as bad as some of the other stuff we went through. Toto-rak, Aurum Vale. Those were just… painful," G'dhap responded.

With that, the two backed up from the podium and turned to face the rest of the group.

"So… Are we going in?" Sora asked.

"Nope. Not yet," Josh said, and held up a hand to forestall a protest from Sora. "We have reasons, but the foremost is this. We don't know if you're capable of handling it yet. The strength of the monsters in there skyrocketed from when we first entered. For example, that first run would have been… oh about rank 17. Our second run was rank 50."

G'dhap stepped forward as well, "We can test you, however," He said, "We normally would train our own recruits over the course of a year but we obviously don't have the time. It would be rather simple. Josh and I would face you, using strength comparable to when we were rank 50 ourselves. Hold your own, and you pass. Hell, if you surpass that, we can skip right to the rank 60 and perhaps 70."

Sora didn't even need to think, he nodded eagerly. Riku placed a palm to his face and Kairi let out a little giggle at Sora's antics.

"Well then. Come on, back to the square. If there's anything I've learned it's-" He broke off as a small boom echoed from Merlin's house, "never annoy a wizard. I knew I smelled that the last time I was here."

"Yes, you would learn that wouldn't you," Josh said, smirking as he made his way to the square, followed by G'dhap and the group again.

As they arrived, the two Warriors of Light moved to one side of the square as Sora, Kairi, and Riku assembled on the other.

"The rules are simple, we fight until five minutes are up, or either side is unable to continue. If you hold your own during that time, you pass. If you surpass that level, we go to the rank 60 exam. Same rules except we will be using more techniques and strategies. Any questions?" Josh said, looking at the combatants. Getting no response, he pulled a staff from behind him and his clothing almost imperceptibly rippled. G'dhap pulled out his own sword and shield.

BGM: Tenacity - Final Fantasy XIV

"Begin!" Josh called, and waved his staff quickly. As the Keybladers shot forward, they saw a blue shield envelop Josh and G'dhap and then vanish. G'dhap quickly positioned himself between Josh and the Keybladers and intercepted them. With a quick whip of his shield, spears of light pierced the ground, and by extension, pierced through the three.

As they hissed with pain, another flash of light blinded them. Meanwhile, a small green glow enveloped G'dhap, unseen by the blinded eyes.

Sora was the first to recover, swinging wildly at first but quickly getting into a more controlled style as his eyes cleared. To his dismay, each blow was caught by either G'dhap's sword or shield. G'dhap's own defending started speeding up as Riku and Kairi joined in taking shots.

Every few strikes, one would actually find its way through and hit him. However, now they could see clearly that the wounds were not staying. They were healing quickly and every so often, the green glow reappeared.

Kairi stepped back and saw both Sora and Riku take another hit from a spinning slash. Thinking quickly she sent a couple Cures to them and sent off a Thunder to hit G'dhap. Josh responded by pointing his staff at the ground and sending her skyward via a burst of stones. As she was falling, he directed his own staff at all three of them. For each point, a burst of winds hit one of them. Leaving wind gusts constantly harming them. However. Kairi was doing a great job keeping them conscious and neither side was making ground. To Josh and G'dhap, this counted as surpassing their expectations.

They nodded to each other, and continued the fight. Josh ramped up the challenge by occasionally darting out and sending out a burst of light. It exploded rather quickly and stunned them momentarily as he darted back in and continued his healing. As Kairi continued her own healing of Riku and Sora, and taking the time to shoot out her own spells to attack. Almost too quickly, it seemed like the five minutes were up. But to the three fighting Keybladers, it had almost felt like an eternity.

"Time!" Josh called and darted back in to knock them back with a burst of water. As they landed and stood back up, Josh was applauding their efforts as he put the staff away and pulled out the rapier and orb that Terra, Aqua and Ventus had seen before. As he did this, his clothing rippled once more and he shot a glance to G'dhap.

"I take it you noticed as well?" G'dhap asked.

"Yep." Josh replied.

"Wait. What did he notice?" Ventus asked, from the sidelines.

"They weren't the only ones holding back," Terra responded.

Josh and G'dhap fixed their opponents with a stare.

"Sora," Josh called out, holding the orb so it was floating behind him and levelling his rapier at the trio, "Riku and Kairi as well. How about you stop holding back."

BGM: Incoming! - Xenoblade Chronicles 2

G'dhap charged forward and Sora responded in kind, zipping faster than they had seen. As the two began trading blows once more, G'dhap found himself smiling as he was hard-pressed to block all the shots. When Riku joined in, Sora backed off and threw his keyblade in a way that caused it to ricochet off him, the ground, and him again in rapid succession before reappearing in his hand.

Kairi was sticking back focusing on long-range magic of much higher potency than they had seen her use yet. Including bursts of Holy and Flare.

As Sora darted back in and created a circle of holy magic that hit G'dhap and healed the still attacking Riku at the same time, G'dhap finally spoke, as he slammed his shield into the ground, summoning the light spears again, "Now this is what I'm talking about! Still. I think you forgot someone."

As he finished speaking, a red crystal slammed into Sora and a burst of wind sent Riku skidding away. As they looked for the source, Kairi spotted Josh aiming at her and firing a burst of stones that knocked her away. As Riku caught himself, he vanished and began darting at Josh, vanishing each time he landed a hit before finally landing an overhead blow that launched a shockwave. In response, Josh shot one other burst that turned into a red crystal flower and knocked him into the air, before sending a burst of lightning into him, followed by six ethereal swords that pierced through him before vanishing. They left no marks but the pain was still there.

Sora was still focusing on G'dhap and let loose a flurry of light-infused slashes that not even G'dhap could block all of them, before hitting him with one final downward slash. In response, G'dhap swiped his shield across Sora's face, sending him spinning before nailing him with his own flurry of slashes.

Kairi recovered and started sending the spells after Josh now, sending a barrage of fireballs before moving closer and augmenting her keyblade with water and beginning her own series of slashes. As she got close, Josh retaliated with a burst of flame of his own and sent another wind and stone burst to Riku.

In response, they increased their attacks. Why? Josh was gaining a very noticeable red aura. Riku landed a spinning slash and sent three small comets straight into Josh, sending him skidding back and Josh, in response again, send out another lightning burst, right into Kairi. As he sent out one last red crystal to Riku, he swept his hand and a series of white lines danced across him. That red aura was now fully visible and he darted in to make a surprise attack against Sora, connecting himself with a tether to Sora and then pulling to send himself flying forward for his attack.

A quick Riposte, followed by a z-shaped slash and then a flurry of stabs, before moving behind G'dhap and tapping his orb to the rapier's hilt. A series of flares rippled out to impact Sora, sending him skidding back. And all three focused on G'dhap and Josh, only to find their attacks weren't exactly doing much. G'dhap had outstretched his arms and a cone of blue light was enveloping Josh as it emanated from G'dhap's shoulders, and Josh was launching his series of spells once more, slowly but surely gaining that red aura again, stopping only once to send the six blades out once more. However this time, they landed on the outskirts of the trio, and enveloping them in a brief, but painful, pillar of light.

It was here that Sora decided to risk it, spinning his keyblade, he focused and then, when that cone dropped, he darted straight past them. As he stopped, his keyblade was in a position like it had just been slashed. Three… two… one… and G'dhap and Josh fell to their knees.

"Ow… I think we can call that a pass," G'dhap managed to say, eyes wide with pain.

"How in the seven hells does he know Zantetsuken?" Josh asked, his orb glowing once more as a wave of healing energy cascaded over him, then G'dhap.

"Be grateful it's not Odin's. We'd be dead at that point."

Josh pulled out the staff he had first used and shot out a wave of healing energy that impacted everyone, rapidly healing the wounds they'd sustained.

"What was that?" Sora asked, glaring at them.

"Sorry about that," G'dhap groaned, "But we tend to take it as a bit of an insult when someone holds back against us. Granted we were doing that to you but it was as part of a test. Had I known your full range before this, we wouldn't have bothered."

"Put it this way. You're qualified for rank 70 stuff. There's no doubt about it. You kept us on our toes the whole fight. It was actually one of the more fun fights we've ever gotten to do," Josh said, brushing the last ash from the fireballs from his shirt.

"Yeah, rare that human opponents manage to challenge us. I mean the stuff we've encountered at work can challenge us, occasionally, but with what we've faced previously, it's rare."

"So can we-," Sora started with a grin on his face."

"Sorry lad, not yet. Me and Josh want to, at least, scout out the worlds on our chosen path first and see if we can get a group of them to do in succession before we begin tackling them. If these podiums let just anyone in, yeah we'd do them right away. Mainly because we really don't want normal civilians into them," G'dhap said. Finally sheathing his sword and shield.

"Once we get back, we'll definitely take you into the Copperbell Mines once more," Josh said, placing the staff on holsters on his back, before his clothing rippled again, replacing the staff with his sheathed rapier and orb, "Assuming you haven't gone in yourselves. I think we can definitely trust you in there. If you find any other podiums, let us know. We can tell you what they lead to if you describe the image on them."

"We're going to go find the memory circle here and then get moving to The Land of Dragons. We'll give you a heads up when we're on our way back here," G'dhap said, moving to start his exploration, with Josh following behind him.

As it turned out, the search for the circle took a rather long time. As they combed over the world, they soon realized that their fight with Sora, Riku and Kairi, as well as the fact that they were new to the area, meant that they were pretty restricted in where they could search. After a few hours of searching the areas they could access, they were forced to give up for now.

They were a bit miffed but Josh reasoned they could just fly back later if need be. What also softened the blow was the fact that they managed to find a few more podiums in these areas, but they didn't pause to examine which ones they were for. So it was that they flew off, vanishing into the Lanes Between, on their magical eagles.

[hr]

Lanes Between

"So our next destination should be coming into view soon right?" G'dhap called.

"Yes. The Land of Dragons. From what was written in the journals, we'll likely get Doman vibes from it," Josh responded, combing the purple horizon for the world and any potential dangerous places from Hydaelyn.

"Do you think we'll find any of our members there?"

"Hopefully. But we'll need to keep our heads down. If we pull a repeat performance, we'll likely deal with the same stuff we went through in Radiant Garden. It was our own fault so I'd like to avoid that."

"Well, we had to test them somehow. Are we going to repeat that with Terra, Aqua, and Ventus?"

"I'll be honest, we may need to. I got the hint that, during our battle with Ifrit, they were holding back as well. But given they weren't given much of a chance during the fight with Garland before we all got the shit kicked out of us, I can't be certain."

They paused as they felt their birds waver slightly.

"What was that?" G'dhap wondered.

A second wave hit, one that they felt and their birds nearly were knocked off course.

"What in the seven hells? Shit, hold it together! I see the Land of Dragons!" Josh said, pointing as they saw the world appearing in their view. Unfortunately, fate had another plan, as the third and final wave hit them and sent them spiraling off course, off their birds, and into a different world.

As they pulled themselves up, they took stock of their new location. A large grassy plain stretching in front of them greeted their eyes. As they took a bit of a further look, they noticed deep crevasses to either side, and a forest on the side of those crevasses with a tower far off in the distance. In front of them as they further examined the plain, a small hill with an opening awaited a bit further down.

"I don't recall this world being in any of those journals," Josh remarked.

G'dhap tried blowing the whistles he had on him, but the ripple, as they were calling it, was preventing any effect.

"I can't pull any of my mounts as of now either," He said, his hand reaching for his sword.

"So like one of the dungeons we were in?" Josh said, his own hand reaching for the rapier at his side.

"Yup."

"Well, in that case. Let's see how far we can go. If we're attacked, we respond in kind. We've fought a giant Allagan machine, we've defeated the Knights of the Round and Nidhogg, and we've removed the Garlean occupation of Doma and Ala Mhigo. Whatever this place can throw at us is nothing compared to what we've already been through.

[hr]

?

A man in a top hat and tuxedo stepped through a portal, offering his hand to the woman following him, who was dressed in a beautiful, golden, kimono.

"I'm glad you wanted to come with me. These explorations are much better than when alone," the man said.

"Of course dear," The woman said, smiling, "Now, tell me. Where have we wound up?"

"Well," the man paused, looking around, "I haven't the foggiest. I just explore, trying to help the warriors of Hydaelyn potentially find each other. The first world was a bust, but you may have liked it. You would've been able to be in your normal form."

As the two looked around the town they appeared in, they took in the darkened streets, illuminated only by the streetlights. They paused, then looked up at the night sky.

"Well, I think I can find where we are based on that," the man said, pointing up into the night sky, at a shattered moon, "I recall the world guidebooks back at the Nexus referring to that."

"Hm?" The woman turned to see a lone person, approaching with a small gun aimed at them.

"Hand over your valuables! And you might just live to see the next day," the person said, shaking just a bit from nerves.

"Oh well, isn't this quaint!" The top hat wearing man exclaimed, clapping his hands, "I'm afraid I don't have time to humor you today. So scurry along!" He punctuated this with a shooing motion.

"What?!"

"Now then… Oh that's a definite signature. Well I expect that they'll be most pleased."

"This is your last chance! Hand over your w-wallet and valuables."

"And I believe I said I don't have the time to humor you. I've got things to take care of and you aren't one of them. Besides," The man paused to look around, "This isn't even a dark alley. We're in the middle of the street. I would have thought you wouldn't be stupid enough to attempt this in plain sight."

"Fine! Y-you had your chance! I'll take what you have off your corpse!" He shot a few rounds, only to freeze in fear.

"Oh, you shouldn't have done that," the top hat man said, all traces of humor gone from his voice as his hand was held in front of him. He lowered it, letting the bullets drop to the ground. "Dear? Why don't we show him just how bad of an idea that was."

"With pleasure," the woman replied, as her kimono started rippling until it only covered her lower half, forming into a fishtail. Her top half was only clad in a seashell bikini. And in her black hair, pink coral appeared as the hair was pulled back into a bun. As she raised an arm, the man's face grew pale and he began panicking as a large wave of water appeared behind the couple.

The man looked back at the wave, did a double take, then opened an umbrella. "We have got to talk about disproportionate retribution, dear."

A.N. and here we are at last! Quicker update time than before thankfully but I still can't claim this will be constant unfortunately. Now… Who can guess all the attacks used by Sora and Riku, besides the explicitly named one? And if you can guess the two references in the ? segment, you get a cookie.

And also, onto the Job segment! Today, we cover the Red Mage.

This class is quite fun, it's my personal main job in game. This class focuses on chaining spells and using them to raise your black and white mana. When both are at 80% you can pull off your enchanted melee combo and then finish off with a powerful spell before beginning the chain again. Red Mages also have utility in the form of Embolden, which raises their magic damage and all surrounding players physical damage for a bit, Vercure and Verraise.

They also have Fleche and Contre Sixte to deal instant damage. Fleche is the single target and Contre Sixte is aoe. Both were used in this chapter.

Any spell with a cast timer will trigger Dualcast which lets you cast the next spell with no timer. You start with Jolt and then begin the chain with either Verthunder or Veraero. Depending on which one you use, you can potentially gain Verfire or Verstone respectively. Acceleration can be used once every 35 seconds to make this possibility a certainty. Verfire and Verstone have the normal GCD timer as well so you can use them to continue the chain.

Should you not be lucky, Jolt also triggers Impact and you can use the cast time of that to start the chain again.

As you continue casting, you can use a cooldown called Manafication to instantly double your existing mana and get to your combo faster. This also resets Corps-a-Corps, which is your gap closer(this was also used in chapter), and Displacement, which allows you to back off.

Once you get in, Your combo is as follows, and this was used as well in chapter, though now you have names for it. Riposte Zwerchau Redoublement. Before finishing off with either Verholy or Verflare depending on which mana is lower. From there, it'll trigger Verstone or Verfire, and the chain continues.

What Red Mage sacrifices with damage, it makes up for with utility.

Now onto… well speculative news it could be called. I am planning a FFXIV/RWBY crossover. When it will appear, I don't know. Timewise, it will take place after this story so I'm going to get this further before beginning it. I plan on writing at least three chapters of it before even posting it so it won't appear for awhile.


	6. Brothers In Arms

**A.N. Just a heads up, I have altered some enemy behavior as well as some of the way this level normally was. I hope you enjoy the changes.**

 _?: Plains of Passage_

BGM - Strike the Earth! - Shovel Knight

The warriors started moving, quickly advancing through the plains. But apart from a couple oversized ants that barely acknowledged them and a few aggressive skeletons, which were dealt with quickly, they fought no real opposition.

As they reached the large hill, they made their way into it, as it was too steep to climb and no way around it, and found their path quickly blocked by a large cracked wall.

Not one to admit defeat too easily, Josh shot forth a burst of wind, scattering the cracked rocks away and revealing another path forward, and a ladder leading upwards. As they climbed the ladder, they found another cracked wall blocking their path, another bash from G'dhap, and the wall crumbled to reveal their path forward, and another skeleton that was quickly reduced to nothing from a blast of stones.

They climbed up a second ladder to find yet one more cracked wall and a quick blast sent it crumbling, revealing a slime enemy and a hole behind it that was their only way forward. After sending a Jolt through it, Josh shrugged at G'dhap and jumped in the hole, with his friend following seconds later.

As they landed, they cut through another slime and skeleton before finally arriving at what they considered to be a mini-boss. A sleeping dragon that blocked the only way forward.

"We've fought bigger," G'dhap said, and charged forward, bouncing his shield off the dragon's head. The dragon woke and let out a fierce roar before… blowing bubbles at them. Josh curiously poked a bubble and the force of it sent him straight into a wall.

"Josh! Don't do that! I'd rather not have to explain to R'idill about how you killed yourself being stupid!" G'dhap yelled, ducking a swipe from one set of claws and blocking the other with his shield and taking the opportunity to send a series of slashes into the dragon's scaly side.

"Noted… Ow," Josh groaned as he peeled himself off the wall and shot out the Fleche and Contre Sixte swords, before opening into his chainspells.

The dragon quickly switched its repertoire and extended its wings alongside the bubbles, slamming them into the ground and just barely missing Josh, who took off running the second he saw them extend over his head. The tail then swept out and nearly hit him, before it swept back again and knocked him into the wall.

He extended a tether for Corps-a-Corps to shoot him back into the dragon to deliver his melee combo before flipping out of the range of another tail swipe and sending down a Verholy as G'dhap knocked the dragon's head upward with a Goring Slash, and slashing into a combo for the Rage of Halone.

With a ferocious roar, the dragon snapped at G'dhap and sent out more of the bubble breath. While it hit G'dhap, he had used his defensive stance of Rampart to lower the damage. Where Josh had been knocked into the wall, G'dhap was merely pushed lightly by it, and a Vercure quickly patched what wounds had been taken.

After a couple more minutes, the dragon groaned and fell over and a pile of rocks that had been blocking their progression vanished.

"Not that bad," Josh said, sheathing his blade and walking forward.

"You got blown into a wall by a bubble. How is that not that bad?" G'dhap said, following him.

"Have you seen some of the stuff we've been through? A bubble is the least painful thing, even if it hit that hard."

As they moved onwards, they saw something that unnerved them.

"Over there, just beyond that gap," Josh muttered, unsheathing his blade once more.

"I see it," G'dhap replied, moving to jump the gap and engage, "Heartless."

"Looks to be just Shadows but let's not take chances, no holding back!"

Given how low on the totem Shadows were, they were taken out in only a minute, but as they pressed onwards, exiting the hills interior and climbing upwards, they soon encountered Soldiers clanking towards them and soon followed by Large Bodies.

As they continued onwards, fighting off more Heartless, they reached the top of the hill and saw the second boss arena in front of them.

"That's a big one!" Josh exclaimed.

"No kidding. Look! There's two people already fighting it. Let's go lend a hand," G'dhap said, quickly running forward and throwing his shield to distract the large Heartless currently fighting the two other warriors. They had similarly shaped armor on. Both wearing plate mail with horned helmets as well as instead of fighting with swords, they had sharpened shovels in their grips. The only difference between them was one of them had light blue armor on while the other had black armor with red highlights.

"Allies?" The blue one exclaimed.

"Aye," G'dhap said, glaring up at their foe. A towering black Heartless. Bipedal with a giant heart missing in its navel area and two black wings extending from its back. A Darkside.

As it plunged its hand down towards the arena, everyone scattered as it created a dark pool where the hand impacted. Josh made quick work of the Shadows that spawned as G'dhap and the two knights whaled on the hand before it pulled back.

"The fiend's legs cannot be harmed!" The black knight said, as G'dhap turned to try hamstringing the Heartless.

"Tis true!" The blue knight confirmed, "We've only had luck even scratching the hands. As well as the head when- Incoming! Let us handle this!"

They shoved their way to the front as energy balls started raining down from the sky. With deft swings they started reflecting them back at the Darkside's head, staggering it back.

"Reflective shovels?" Josh remarked.

"If we get materials, we are trying to make some," G'dhap replied.

"Key word being 'if'"

"Another fist, incoming!" Josh and G'dhap jumped out of the way and started whacking away at the hand when G'dhap got a small idea and hopped on the arm, running up it.

"What in the seven hells are you doing?" Josh shouted.

"Testing an idea!" G'dhap called back, swinging his sword straight into the Darkside's head.

The Heartless staggered a bit at the impact, reaching up to clutch where the sword was. Only to recoil again, and again, and continually as G'dhap kept hammering away at it.

"Ha ha! It works!" G'dhap crowed gleefully.

"Interesting… the legs are invulnerable, making it so that you can't topple it normally to get to the head. The arms are more lightly armored than the legs but if one were to reach the head, it's just like any other enemy." Josh mused, having stepped back to observe the falling titan. "Something to add to my notes then."

"That was fine fighting!" The blue knight said, walking forward, "I am called Shovel Knight!"

"I am Black Knight," his companion said, much less boisterously.

"A pleasure to meet you, and an honor to see a new fighting style. I am Josh Corvus and my companion," He paused to look at G'dhap, who was still stabbing the ground where a bit of the dissipating Heartless still remained, "Is called G'dhap Tia. I assure you he's not insane, he's just been taught to make sure something is actually dead and not just faking it."

"Shovel Knight, we do not have time for pleasantries. Our goal still lies ahead," the Black Knight interjected.

"Quite right! We heard tell of a miscreant attacking a village not too far from here, and with Shield Knight still recovering from her wounds, we thought it best to remove this threat ourselves," Shovel Knight explained.

"Hmm, would you care for a bit of assistance?" Josh asked, pulling out a strange device and a small set of cards, as well as putting away his rapier and attaching a sleeve to his hip. "Both G'dhap and I know how well a couple extra hands can help."

The two knights looked at eachother and backed away, speaking to one another in hushed tones.

"So-" G'dhap spoke up from next to Josh.

"Gah! Must you always sneak up on me?" Josh said, as he jumped to the side.

"Apparently. Anyways. You think it's this Garland you mentioned earlier?"

"No idea. He mentioned something about a master, so there may be other 'minions' so to speak. That or it could be just someone causing trouble. We don't know."

"True… Actually there is one other 'miscreant' that's been mistaken as an attacker more than on-"

"You speak his name and I hurl you off a cliff. We don't need him showing up here."

"You think just saying his name will call him?"

"Given what he's pulled off in the past, I wouldn't doubt it."

As they continued talking, the two knights rejoined them.

"Very well! You may assist us!" Shovel Knight proclaimed.

"Don't make us regret it," The Black Knight added in, causing Shovel to side-eye him.

To this, Josh merely grinned and pulled out the device, which quickly expanded into several rotating rings, complete with a glowing orb in the middle.

"What on earth is that?" Shovel Knight asked.

"An Astroglobe. It's something that a sect of healers use where we come from. I took some training with it a while ago. If we're going to be dealing with whatever is in the nearby village, It'd be best if we had some healing, don't you think?" Josh asked, as he placed his hand to the globe and charged a small blue light, before casting it out. As the light impacted all of them, a small hexagonal barrier encompassed all of them.

"A little extra shielding as well." He announced.

"Hmm. You going Nocturnal or Diurnal?" G'dhap asked.

"Diurnal."

"Very well. Let's move out!" G'dhap said, striding forward.

"Nocturnal? Diurnal?" the Black Knight muttered under his breath.

As they moved on, down the hill. They came across more Heartless, the Soldier and Large Body variants. It began to get to the point where G'dhap was frustrated.

"Dang it! They're too tough on the front for attacks and they keep turning when I get behind them," He growled.

"Leave them to me and handle the Soldiers," Josh responded, sending a burst of starry magic into one of the Large Bodies and putting a small orb nearby another. "They're just as vulnerable to magic all around."

"Gotcha," G'dhap said, darting off to the Soldiers.

In about a minute, all the Heartless were dispatched and Shovel Knight was still spooked when the orb exploded in another burst of starry magic, revealing a set of constellations in a small dome before it vanished.

"What sorcery is that?" He muttered as they continued onward.

As they dispatched more and more Heartless, the village got closer and closer. It was obvious that something was going on as smoke was rising from said village and a couple of the houses were on fire. Oh and Air Soldiers were flying around to the screams of the residents.

"And there's the target. Time to work for a living, Josh!" G'dhap said, running forward.

"Oi! Do not leave us behind!" Josh yelled chasing after him with Shovel and Black Knight trailing closely behind.

When they reached the village, they saw the Heartless destroying whatever they could get their hands on. And standing in the middle of all the chaos was a yellow haired man. He had on very gaudy yellow armor with a purple cape. His hair went halfway down his back and had two long lines halfway down his front as well with purple highlights towards the end of them. It also extended out from the sides of his head, reminiscent of horns. His armors pauldrons extended upwards to resemble horns as well and clutched in his right hand was a bladed staff.

"Fascinating creatures aren't they?" He said, "Born of darkness yet able to act intelligently. And if someone has more darkness than they, it seems they will follow orders."

At the sound of unsheathing weapons behind him, he turned around to reveal a smirking face.

 _BGM: FFII Battle 2 - Dissidia Final Fantasy_

"But where are my manners? You may refer to me as the Emperor. You may kneel before me."

"Pfft. Haven't kneeled before royalty before," G'dhap said.

"Likely won't anytime soon," Josh finished, motioning for Shovel and Black Knight to go help the villagers.

"Well now. That is a pity. But even if you had, I really can not let you live unfortunately. Do try not to bore me," The Emperor said, flipping his staff lazily in his hand before moving towards them.

As he got close, Josh and G'dhap jumped to the side as he tapped his staff on the ground, sending up two orbs. When G'dhap got close, he deftly jabbed the staff in his gut, pushing him away and sending him skyward with a small explosion. As he moved to chase him upwards, He got hit by a burst of starry magic and looked to see Josh charging and firing shots.

He responded by drawing a sigil in the air as G'dhap fell and landed on his feet. The sigil quickly fired light shots at Josh who dodged out of the way, pulling a card from the sleeve on his hip as he did so.

"Bole going out!" He shouted to G'dhap and the card lit up. Almost instantly, G'dhap felt his defenses increase. He then quickly drew more cards, setting one in the sleeve, sending one to the royal road, turning one into a lesser arcana and finally keeping the last one.

"Oh that's a nice one," He muttered, setting down another orb.

"Now that is interesting, I do not think I've seen your magic before, boy." The Emperor said, tapping his staff on the ground and creating another spark that lay there.

"And you aren't learning anything but what you see," Josh replied, before crunching the card in his hand and feeling his own magic start regenerating quickly. With a quick gesture, a sphere encompassed G'dhap and another did the same to Josh. G'dhap quickly charged forward, nailing the Emperor in the back of the head and sending him skidding with a Royal Sovereignty combo.

"And now you pests are being annoying," he muttered, as he started moving quickly. Setting down light circles on the ground, and hurling large fireballs in the air as he continued laying traps. It was all they could do to avoid them as Josh kept hurling spells and G'dhap started casting Holy Spirit. They could not get close at all.

Josh drew another card and set the orb behind the Emperor again. As he was still focusing on the duo and setting his trap, he didn't notice the orb right behind him. Well not until ten seconds later when it grew a bit and Josh clenched his fist, sending him hurtling forward towards G'dhap as the orb exploded into the starry dome. G'dhap did not waste his chance and smacked him in the face with his shield, stunning him long enough to send another Royal Authority combo into the Emperor. This actually hurt a lot as the card that Josh had given to G'dhap was the Balance, powered up by a potency Royal Road.

G'dhap hit him skyward with a Goring Blade combo and sent him landing on his back. As G'dhap charged forward, he stepped on one of the traps and got blasted backwards by a series of orbs that exploded.

"That is enough, you miserable little rats," the Emperor said, getting to his feet. In a flash he looked far more menacing. Gone was the golden hair and in its place, a dark demon head scowled at them.

"Oh shit," Josh said, "Careful, that Garland did something similar"

"Oh so you ran into him already as well? I'm impressed you survived him. But you will not be repeating that with me!" The Emperor yelled, sending a fireball towards them.

 _Oh dear that's not going to end well. Hold on tight, it's about to get crazy._

"Wait, what?" Josh asked. Right before a hole opened up underneath them, dropping them out of the path of the fireball. The hole closed as quickly as it came. Leaving a confused, and soon very enraged Emperor.

* * *

 _Olympus Coliseum: The Coliseum_

The cheers were roaring through as the combatants were clashing fiercely. On one side was the one-armed swordsman Auron. Many believed that his arm in a sling was perfectly usable but he preferred to fight like that to handicap himself or because he enjoyed it.

On the other, was the mysterious newcomer R'idill. Her cat ears and tail had made her a favorite amongst many of the kids and some of the men. The fact that she had a very good win/loss record alongside the fact that she never used the same fighting style twice in a row also added to her popularity.

As the two kicked back from their blade lock and landed on the opposite side of the arena, breathing heavily, to gauge their opponent, R'idill's ears twitched and she quickly held up a sign for one second as she looked in the sky. Auron followed her gaze. It didn't take long for both of their eyes to widen and they jumped out of the arena as two meteors crashed straight into the middle of the field.

"What in the seven hells was that?" R'idill muttered, "Oi, Auron! You alright over there? Would rather not have that knock you out instead of the fight!"

"I'm fine," Auron's voice echoed. He never really spoke much if he didn't have to.

R'idill got up and cautiously made her way to the crater to see what had landed. What she didn't expect to hear, was very familiar voices from her past.

"What in the seven hells… Ow… G'dhap, you still alive?"

"Barely. What was that anyways?"

"I don't know. Can you see my Astroglobe? I think we're going to need a Helios."

"I can't see anything. I'm kind of stuck in the ground."

"And here I thought that only happened to-"

"What happened to not saying his name?"

"Who says I was going to? I was gonna just refer to him as that inspector."

R'idill's eyes began watering, as she softly called out, "Josh? G'dhap?"

Both voices fell silent. Before one of them spoke up again.

"No way… R'idill?"

"I don't believe it!"

She jumped into the hole to see two pairs of legs sticking rather comically out of the ground, one of them wiggling frantically. She quickly ran and pulled one pair out then the other.

"You… You're alive! You're both alive!" She cried, and promptly got bowled over by a hug from Josh, knocking her sword out of her hand with the impact.

"Thank the twelve," he muttered, clutching her tightly.

"Oi! Don't I get a hug?" G'dhap shouted, with a huge smile on his face. R'idill rolled her eyes and motioned for him to come over. The coliseum crowd had been stunned into silence at this point, not sure what was going on.

Auron merely smirked, and walked off muttering, "How touching."

He'd gotten the feeling that the match would have to be rescheduled. As the trio just sat there in silence, reveling in the knowledge that one of their own was alive. G'dhap finally spoke up.

"Now if you two need some private time after this I can totally-"

-SLAP!- -PUNCH!-

* * *

 **A.N. I am so, so sorry that this took so long to come out. My muse has pretty much deserted me at this point when I started replaying Fire Emblem Awakening and got an idea from there. I will continue working on this but the problem is I need a bit of inspiration to go on a chapter. And you can probably guess where it fled to. Hopefully I can continue on this one quickly enough but if not, you'll likely see a Fire Emblem crossover appear.**

 **Onto one of the fun things that you may have guessed will be appearing. I will not stick to just the worlds in Kingdom Hearts. As you can tell from this chapter, other games will be appearing as well as small worlds, usually just dungeon cameos. Villains from other Final Fantasies will be appearing and I have also already decided which ones will be present in here.**

 **Truthfully, the Emperor was not supposed to be fought here, I had planned for him to summon Manikins or just an even bigger Heartless. But looking back on it, I don't think he would've left it to chance. If he could take them out here, why bother siccing minions instead?**

 **I also realize I forgot to give a little description for some of the attacks. Goring Blade is an upward slash that leaves a painful wound and deals damage over time. Authority is best described as a spinning slash with an upward tilt, taking the user a bit off the ground. It's not exactly like the spinning slash from LoZ, that would be Total Eclipse**

 **Now as a last thing, enjoy this little omake of Nexus heading to other worlds. Try to see how many you recognize!**

* * *

"Right… Left the wife at home after the city flood, where are we now?"

"IZAYAAAAAAAA!"

"Oh crap, flying vending machine!"

* * *

"That was a close one, where exactly did I wind up now?"

"Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god!" -CRASH!-

"And that was a flying jeep. This is what I get for going to random worlds."

* * *

"This looks like a desert tomb… That is a very orange marsupial. And that looked very painful."

* * *

"Huh, where am I now? Area 51? And are those zombies?"

"Oh! I can see Dempsey's house from here! IT'S ON FIRE!"

"That's it, I'm done for the day."


	7. Shelter

_Olympus Coliseum: R'idill's Room_

"So… You landed in a castle town called Radiant Garden?"

"Yep! Unlike Josh, I also had the misfortune of appearing on a roof. Walked straight off and landed flat on my face."

"Ouch. At least you could heal yourself."

"Have you fallen on armor before? It hurts. A lot."

"Yes, I have. You don't remember when I tried gladiator training?"

It was a few hours after the arena had been obliterated by the man-made meteors of Josh and G'dhap. While it was being repaired, they had retired to R'idil's room so they could catch up and hopefully come up with a plan. G'dhap was sitting on a chair nearby the bed where Josh and R'idill were sitting. Both of them had an arm wrapped around the other and it looked like they weren't going to be changing that any time soon.

R'idill had also changed into some different clothing, out of the armor she had been wearing. She had switched into some black robes, with a pointy black hat and wrappings sitting next to her on the bed. Normally, the hat and facial wrappings would do a good job of trapping her ears and blue hair, but for now, she saw no reason to put them on.

"I remember that," Josh mused," "You really didn't like that armor at first."

"Did you?" She shot back, with an amused glance to him.

"Admittedly, no. Then again I didn't wear them for long."

"Wait what?"

"I didn't master Armoring but I still knew enough to make better stuff easily."

"I've missed seeing this," G'dhap said with an amused smirk on his face, "But we really should hash out a game plan before we get further off track. R'idill, this is Olympus Coliseum right?"

"You litt- sorry what?" She said, breaking off from her argument with Josh, "Oh, yes. This is the Coliseum."

"And have you seen any… they're podiums right Josh?" Josh nodded in response.

"Podiums?"

"Yeah. From what I can tell, the screens on them show past areas we've been to. Once we get enough people to tap the screen, we're warped to the place and we have to clear it out before we leave." Josh jumped in, "I think they also leave a crystal behind when we clear them."

"I can confirm that. When I took out the Copperbell Mines, a crystal dropped in front of the exit. Oh, nearly forgot. When we find Iri, I'm gonna need to get her help. Looks like they also drop the same stuff they did when we cleared them the first times so Sora now has an Orchestrion roll. Alchemy was enough to at least get that one restored." G'dhap said, ears perking as he remembered the energetic boy.

"Well you're not wrong about the crystals," a voice rang out from the other corner of the room, "They look a lot like your own crystals of light, don't they?"

Everyone paused and slowly turned towards the corner. Sitting in a chair, that was quite clearly not there before, was a man dressed in a very nice black tuxedo. Under the top hat on his head, blond hair spilled out and a set of green eyes glittered mischievously behind his spectacles.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Warriors of Light," he said, seemingly unfazed by the weapons that were now pointing at him, "I am Nexus, the guy behind the managing of the Mirage Arena. Glad to see the little portal trip didn't end badly."

"Little portal… That was you?" Josh said

"Indeed," Nexus nodded, "If that Flare hit you, it wouldn't have been pretty. Don't worry about the Valley. When you vanished, Emperor Mateus Palamecia simply took off as well, with the leftover Heartless getting dispatched quickly by Shovel Knight and Black Knight. Luckily, all they need to do is rebuild."

"Well that's good," G'dhap muttered, sheathing his sword, "Wait, what's this Mirage Arena?"

"Glad you asked!" Nexus proclaimed, and snapped his finger creating an image of it in front of them, "The Mirage Arena is a place for warriors to train, hone their skills, and take on incredible beasts. Without the fear of… well without dying themselves. It runs off of memories and I can use the data in there to create even tougher fights. Interestingly enough, a powerful being in your world actually seems to have made a sport out of retooling memories for even more powerful fights. So not much work required for me there."

He snapped his finger again, dispersing the image. "I'm also working on creating fights based on other enemy data, but that'll take a bit. If you come visit after a couple worlds, it should be ready."

"Well that's neat and all," Josh began.

"But I don't think that's why you're here," R'idill finished, "So why did you come here?"

"Right, right. Got off track there, sorry," Nexus said, a cheeky grin on his face, "I wanted to help give a bit of direction. As it stands, rules for my kind state that direct intervention is a big no-no. I'm going to catch hell for that portal stunt because of it. However, giving direction and advice is perfectly fine."

"Your kind?" Josh asked, frowning a bit.

"Aye. I'm what you would call an immortal. Don't die of natural causes, and it's going to be near impossible for anyone not an immortal, or outright god, to kill me. However due to this, we have rules that prevent us from messing things up. One of them is no direct interference. With what we're capable of, we could screw things up to a dangerous extent. We're also not allowed to attack mortals until we're attacked first."

Nexus paused a second and shook his head, "Gotta stop getting off track, anyways, guidance." He waved his hand and an map of the Lanes Between appeared in front of them.

"So, you're here now," he pointed to one of the worlds and a small little arrow appeared above it, "Nearby is the Land of Dragons and Beast's Castle." The two worlds in question lit up as he mentioned them.

"Now here's the tricky bit, right over here you noticed Alexander, correct?" The route between Radiant Garden and Twilight Town lit up.

"Yes we- how long were you watching us?" Josh asked.

"Since you arrived here, considering my own employee caused some of this, I'm trying to keep an eye for a bit. Anyways, it looks like some of the bigger challenges you faced are not located on any world, instead they're located within the Lanes Between. To my knowledge, you can find the Binding Coils… about here," A space between three worlds lit up, "For reference, those three are Port Royal, Agrabah, and Halloween Town. Just, be careful around it. And the Aetherial Rift is located here, probably a good thing too." A space located to the south of the map lit up, with no worlds surrounding it.

"Lastly, that world that you were forced into… Well it really shouldn't have been there."

"And why is that?" G'dhap asked, noting a yawn from Josh.

"It was supposed to be sealed," Nexus answered, "Now, I foresee questions so let me explain. The worlds you have visited, with that one exception, are unsealed worlds. You can see them in the Lanes Between and visit them freely. And then there are Sealed Worlds. For one reason or another, these worlds have been locked away from the Lanes Between for millennia. Only one place holds records of them in detail, not even Master Yen Sid has them. Though it's surprising that he had records of Hydaelyn to begin with, truthfully."

"Why was Hydaelyn sealed in the first place?" R'idill asked.

"The Allagan Empire," Nexus stated, getting nods of understanding from all of them, "Not one of the immortals wanted to entertain the idea of them getting inter-world travel."

"That makes sense," Josh mused, "They committed atrocities on not only those they conquered, but their own people, and ultimately took themselves out with the Crystal Tower."

"Bingo," Nexus continued, "Anyways, that world you were dragged into is called The Valley and it was sealed. Partially because it really couldn't benefit from the chaos that inter-world travel brings. It has its own problems to deal with and none of the Princesses of Heart were there… Nor was there Heartless attacks."

He paused to see two confused looks and one thoughtful one.

"I'll explain some of his terms later," Josh said, motioning for Nexus to continue.

"How did you know about them?" Nexus asked.

"Went on a reading binge of Sora's journals."

"Gotcha. Now, I've been looking about for your teammates. Got good news and bad news. Good news is that I did locate a few, the bad news is only one's in the unsealed worlds. The good news for you," He paused to point at G'dhap, "It's your friend, Iri. Yes, I know, you're far more than friends these days."

G'dhap paused, looking like he took a shield to the face before uttering one word, "Where?"

With a wave, another world lit up along with arrows pointing to Radiant Garden. "They were on Disney Castle, but my moogle minions reported they were heading to Radiant Garden, and then Twilight Town. If you hurry, you can catch them there."

G'dhap nodded and began to get up. Thankfully, they had found the Memory Circle in the lobby as they headed to R'idill's room, but he still needed to fly to Radiant Garden as they hadn't gotten to the Memory Circle there. As he made his way to the door, one of the worlds started glowing red.

"Well that's odd…" Nexus muttered, poking it.

"That's Beast's Castle, isn't it?" Josh asked.

"Correct, looks like something is messing around there. I hate to be a bother but could you look into it for me? I'll give you a nice little boost in your quest as an incentive," Nexus said, frowning at the map.

"What kind of boost?"

"Normally, my own rules would prevent me from doing this, but a reward is a nice little loophole around it. It's a little tablet that will show you where each podium is in a world. Won't be able to show you where the podium leads, but it will drastically cut down your search time. Ah, and I nearly forgot," Nexus grinned, then reached out and slapped each of them with one movement.

"Ow!"

"What the-"

"Gonna kill you!"

"Settle down, that was just an overly dramatic way… of giving you the teleport ability to the Mirage Arena. Now you should be able to visit when you want, and you can take your friend, Iri, with you when you do. One last thing and then I'll be off. That problem likely isn't going anywhere soon so…" Nexus reached out and flicked Josh in the forehead, putting him to sleep, "Take a rest for once. I mean I know stubborn, I worked for a week straight to fix up the crashes that you folks were about to and did bring to the Mirage Arena. But you aren't like me, you need sleep… And you were the last one to get it."

"What?" R'idill looked at Josh with concern, stopping her death glare at Nexus.

"I'll give him this, he puts my determination to shame. I get the feeling he was stressing so much that he was literally unable to sleep. Stressing over you, your friends, probably the whole situation. He needs to get at least a bit of sleep. You can head to Beast's Castle when he wakes up. And it should get G'dhap his time to go find Iri." Nexus said, waving his hand to disperse the map.

"How long-"

"About three days. I'm surprised he didn't pass out the second he sat down on the bed. But-"

"Not the first time this idiot has done that, won't be the last. Thank you. I'll make sure he gets his sleep. But what about-" R'idill broke off, looking at G'dhap.

"I got some sleep, unlike moron here I was able to get some sleep when I was heading to Twilight Town with Sora, Riku and Kairi," G'dhap said.

"You'll have to introduce me to those three eventually," R'idill said, taking the time to put covers over Josh as he snored away.

"Oh you will meet them. Five gil says that Josh is already planning some sort of test for them involving the four of us."

"Now that's an even bigger sucker bet than when we guess something's going to go wrong."

They paused as they noticed Nexus staring straight at Josh.

"Is there something wrong with him?" G'dhap asked, hand on his sword again.

"Not wrong but… strange. 'Tis a weird dream he's having, almost as though it's a memory." Nexus mused, "But not one that matches with his current ones. I'll look into this for you, free of charge. In the meantime. I look forward to seeing you in the Mirage Arena and… try not to let the incident in The Valley become a regular occurance. I can't save you again like that. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to meet with my own boss and try to explain my actions. Take care!"

He gave a deep bow, and then vanished as though he was never there in the first place. One frame there, next frame not, leaving a small tablet on the ground that R'idill picked up and examined.

"Well… That was… odd?" G'dhap said.

"No kidding… Well what are you waiting for? Go get her," R'idill said, giving him a grin.

"We'll meet you at Beast's Castle, try not to finish the problem without us?"

"No promises."

 _ **The Hat cup is now accessible through the Mirage Arena.**_

 _ **The Tensei cup is now accessible through the Mirage Arena**_

 _ **The Star Cup is now accessible through the Mirage Arena.**_

 _ **The Bowl of Embers(Extreme) is now accessible through the Mirage Arena**_

 _ **Exhibition matches are now accessible through the Mirage Arena**_

[hr]

 _Radiant Garden: Fountain Plaza_

"Donald! Goofy!"

"Sora!"

"Long time!"

Sora found himself tackled to the ground under Goofy and Donald, who had glomped him upon seeing him again.

"What are you two doing here?" He said, laughing as he gave his friends a quick hug.

"Oh, is this your friend?" A serene voice rang out. Sora quickly looked in the direction, as his friends got off him.

"Yup! This is Sora! Sora, meet Iri Shirogane! An… er… I'm sorry Iri, what did you say you were again?" Goofy said, pausing then giving a sheepish look in the same direction.

Walking forward was a beautiful woman, dressed in violet robes that had constellations woven into them, attached to her back was an Astroglobe and on her head was a large pointed hat with more constellations woven into them. What set her apart from others was her white horns in place of where her ears would be, curved so the points were pointed towards the back of her head. Sticking out of the back of the robes was a small draconic tail and on some of her visible skin, patches of scales could be seen.

"An Astrologian," She replied, giving a small bow towards Sora and Kairi, who had been giggling at Goofy and Donald's display, "It is a pleasure to meet you."

"Nice to meet you!" Sora replied, "I gotta ask though, why did you go with them? And where are you from anyways?"

"They told me that if anyone could find my comrades, or had a chance of having met them, it would be you. As for my home, it was a land known as Eorzea. Truth be told this is all a bit surreal to me." Iri said, glancing around the world, "I woke up in.. I believe they called it Disney Castle, and these two found me. Contrary to my expectations, they helped me and quickly devised a plan to help reunite me with my own friends. Though, they needed to get the permission from a king first apparently. Normally, my own experiences from strangers have not gone so well."

"Ohhh…" Sora began thinking a bit, when Kairi provided the memory jog.

"Wait… Eorzea… Would you happen to know a Josh Corvus or G'dhap Tia?" Kairi asked.

Iri's eyes shot towards her, with a hesitant nod.

"Donald and Goofy were right, we did meet them. They gave us something they called Linkpearls and started making their way to The Land of Dragons. They told us how to use them so… Hold on, let me try," Kairi reached a hand up to her ear only to pause, tilting her head at something, "Does anyone else hear that?"

It soon became apparent what she heard as heavy footfalls echoed around the plaza… and Iri was soon bowled over by 150lbs of Miqo'te as G'dhap tackle-hugged her, thankfully he'd remembered to switch into regular clothes.

"G'dhap?!" Sora and Kairi gasped out, rushing to Iri and G'dhap's side.

They needn't have worried, as they saw G'dhap and Iri embracing eachother, both crying tears of joy.

 _30 min later_

They had finally managed to separate the two, though G'dhap still had his hand clasped firmly with Iri's, and were finally getting the chance to ask questions.

"So you two are…" Sora began, only to stop as G'dhap gave a deadpan stare.

"If it isn't obvious by now it'll never be obvious," he said.

"How did you know she was here?" Kairi asked, causing Iri to look at G'dhap.

"A strange, somewhat irritating, guy pointed me here. He called himself Nexus and started dropping information left and right. He mentioned that Iri had left Disney Castle and was headed here, spouted some stuff about the Mirage Arena, said something was happening at Beast's Castle. He then flicked Josh in the forehead, gave a bow and left. And I am leaving stuff out here," G'dhap said, his expression showing exactly how crazy he thought the situation was.

Sora being Sora and possessed of a heroic complex, immediately latched on to what he considered the most important bit. "Something's happening at Beast's Castle? Did he say what?"

"Nope, just asked us to handle it and offered a way to find the podiums we're looking for faster," G'dhap then got a somewhat anxious look, "actually if there's nothing else, I'd like to get going there."

"Dear," G'dhap turned to Iri at that one word, who was currently giving him a deadpan stare, "Would this be a result of your 'competition' with Josh again? You don't want him stopping another problem before you can get there again?"

"Er…"

"Do you not remember what happened the last time you rushed to get to one of these incidents?"

Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy were darting their eyes back and forth between the two as this continued.

"I-"

"You not only fell into Issom-har as you rushed to Urth's Fount, you managed to stir up a Spriggan Nest, annoy a few Water Elementals, you outright pissed off a Sylph and when you did arrive, you were immediately knocked out as Odin slapped you out of the arena with his sword. I'm still finding sap in your hair to this day for that matter! You are not rushing off without me this time and that's final."

G'dhap was speechless for a bit before a grin appeared on his face and he hugged Iri, who could only squeak in surprise.

"Yes, dear."

[hr]

 _?_

"Look I don't bloody care! You broke the rules again! What the hell is your excuse this time?!"

"Sir, with all due respect, they are our best shot at containing this whole fiasco. I took a risk to make sure they could at least get better to help us get that beast sealed again. Look I'm already dealing with the fallout that Vortex caused, you could at least let me get a bit of leeway. Sides, I already told this it won't happen again. Either they get good, or they get dead."

"Nexus, you're one of my best people. You get shit done, and you do it efficiently. On top of all your other projects. But you messed with reality, giving leeway for that is not easy. I gotta punish you somehow, whether I like it or not. And believe me, I don't like it. Let's see what we have to work with here… Mmm. That's impressive… When did you have time to do this?"

"That was a good… five years ago, it was a spur of the moment idea and it's actually working to help us now."

"You mean one of them is-"

"Yep."

"Good work…. Alright, made my decision. Don't make me regret this."

"Sir?"

"Finish your projects in the Mirage Arena, do it quickly and set it up so you're not going to be needed for a long time. If you have to, train a moogle to help you out there. Don't care how long it takes. After that, you're going to the sealed worlds. Find these other Light Fighters or whatever bollocks they're called. And keep an eye out when you're searching. Some other idiot has been messing with other multiverses and sending people from Hydaelyn to other versions of the worlds. Already found one that we can't return and there's another one in progress that I can't do a thing about. If you find the idiot behind it, stop him. You won't be penalized for engaging him. Good luck kid."

"Will I be allowed to visit my wife every once in a while."

"Of course. Just no sticking around in unsealed worlds for more than a couple days at a time. Lanes Between are perfectly fine though. No contacting these people when you start your sealed world crap either."

"Understood."

"Well? Get to it. I've got another gang of idiots to check in on."

[hr]

 **A.N: Well this was a long time in the making, less so than the previous one but long nonetheless. So who is this mysterious person? We know who Nexus is but now we get a bit better glimpse of his abilities and the rules constraining him. And some new stuff in the Mirage Arena alongside a bit of a plot dump! Those cups are effectively the 'raids' of the story. Not completely optional either as they'll serve a bit of a purpose. The Mirage Arena will also serve as the staging ground of Extreme Trials, Savage Raids, and Minstrel's Ballads. Otherwise they'd have no reason to be in the story beyond the 'Oh shit' moments and it wouldn't really be fair to anyone other than the four WoL. No. There won't be any more Warriors joining the fray, I'm going to deal with enough crap just keeping all the current characters straight. No Class Corner today either.**

 **Lastly, I hope I don't annoy anyone with how fast Iri joined the party. I figured with the amount of stuff Nexus was doing, it wouldn't be out of his nature to offer guidance to the one member he could find. Knowledge is the only thing he can freely offer anyways. I was tempted to have his punishment be more slapstick in nature but I realised I wasn't able to write it in well.**

 **Thanks for sticking around for the chapter, make sure to review, and I'll hopefully see you next time!**

 _Next Time:_

"There's someone on the bridge. He hasn't been there for long but he outright refuses to let anyone pass who can't beat him. If he's still there when our supplies arrive, there might be trouble."

"We'll deal with it."

"Uh Josh? You're not gonna like this one."

"Who is it?"

"Well…"

"Oh! It is about time you showed up! Now it's time for our long awaited rematch! If you win, I shall leave this world behind! But should you lose, your weapons are forfeit to me!"


	8. Notification

**Hey guys, Just wanted to give you an update after a long time of waiting. As it stands, the next chapter is in the works, though I have to figure out how to get it to flow the way I want to. But truthfully, it might not come. Now the reason is that we've got KH3 coming in two days at the time of this posting. I'd like to make certain that things won't need to be rewritten entirely to accommodate what we will learn from it. On the other hand, I honestly feel like a rewrite might be worth it. I've got those author eyes, looking back on the work and wondering how the hell I thought this was passable. I've seen ways where it might work better a different way and even found a better way for the intro. So for now, consider the story on official hiatus while I work this out. Until then, I have a non-crossover that I'm writing for fun that might be coming out soon.**

 **For those who read and enjoyed, thank you for reading. For those who were willing to even give it a shot, thank you. If you need an absolutely amazing FFXIV story, I highly recommend RoseDragonWitch's "Eyes Ever Heavensward" and its sequel, "Hells Open, Heavens Weep"**

 **Until next time, take care.**


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